AUTHOR: Meercat
RATING: Strong PG-13
WARNINGS: Violence, some torture, drama, angst
AUTHOR'S THANKS: To Patti and Marg for their wonderful beta of this story. Any remaining mistakes are my own.
Chapter 17
Major Hochstetter stood in the moon-dappled yard and, by the glow of his car's headlights, studied the scene before him. He'd known they were onto something important the instant Lieutenant Rupert Schiller spotted fresh tire tracks on an otherwise overgrown path. Even so, he was not prepared to see his cousin's car, crushed beneath an old windmill.
I must remember to commend the Lieutenant on his observant attention to duty.
Let other officers scramble and claw their way to the top, earning reputations on the backs of junior officers and enlisted men. Let others bow, preen, and primp for attention from their superiors--Wilhelm Klink sprang instantly to mind--even as they plot to rise above them. Let senior officers like Burkhalter and Reinhardt hoard stolen riches or crave power. Wolfgang Hochstetter knew the true path to success--to be the very best at his job, to see what others miss, to dare where others hesitate. To believe.
Oh, yes, he believed in the Third Reich. It touched everything that he, personally, felt to be true and right. Hitler's rise was a revelation to him, a blazing light in an otherwise dreary, anger-tainted world of stagnant jobs and social strangulation, where the less worthy were placed ahead of their betters and Prussian pride and heritage were all but snuffed out.
In the Thousand Year Reign, Wolfgang Hochstetter found his calling. Here, he could--and would--make a difference. If he accomplished nothing else in his life, he would stamp out those threats and intrigues spawned by Hogan and his men.
It would begin here.
From the first report of the patrol's disappearance, he'd known that Willie was dead. Wilfred von Hippel was too zealous an officer, too hungry for recognition and power to disappear without hint or warning. Many nights over a delightful dinner prepared by Wilfred's mother, the younger officer had listened to Wolfgang's suspicions concerning Hogan's connection to sabotage activity in the region. Listened and believed. He may well have discovered something in the course of his patrol that required him to be silenced.
Thanks to Lieutenant Schiller's keen eye, they had found Willie's car. His body could not be far away. If all went well, he would find the damning evidence he needed to march Hogan and his merry band before a firing squad. Klink, too, if the Major had any say in the matter. Anyone so inept as to allow such activity beneath his very nose deserved to be shot.
The answers to the sabotage of the depot lay here. Every instinct and life experience screamed it. If that should prove to be the case, should Willie's death be the catalyst to at last bring an end to underground sabotage in the region, perhaps that would be some consolation to Aunt Gilda.
"You," he motioned to his driver, "check that car. See if anyone is inside. Lieutenant Schiller, check the house. You," he said to the last man, "follow me into the barn."
HH
The instant he identified the car's main passenger, Sergeant Brian Olsen muttered, "Hochstetter. Damn it."
Corporal Furberg thumbed off the safety of his rifle. "Do we take him down?"
Olsen's first instinct was to say yes. The Gestapo Major had been a nearly constant thorn in their side for months. On several occasions, he'd come frightfully close to exposing their entire operation. Case in point: his presence in camp the night before had forced Colonel Hogan to send Carter out alone. In a way, Hochstetter was as responsible for Sergeant Carter's injuries as the man who swung the whip.
Even as he opened his mouth to give the order, Olsen remembered Colonel Hogan's words from earlier that day: "Who's to say his replacement will be any better? This is the Gestapo we're talking about, not the Vienna Boys' Choir. Better the devil we know. No one touches Hochstetter without my express order."
As usual, the Colonel was right. While the two sides were equal in numbers and firepower, the Americans' element of surprise would not last more than a few seconds into any gun battle. To up the ante, a stray bullet could easily penetrate the rotten wall and detonate an explosive pack before Olsen and his men could fight their way clear of the barn.
Still--if Hochstetter just happened to be in the barn when it blew, how could Olsen or his team be in any way responsible?
"Sarge?" Anderssen whispered. "Do we attack?"
"Not unless we absolutely have to," Olsen answered. "But we can't wait to set a long timer. I'll have to blow it now. You two, out the back way, through that hole. Work your way around to Rivera and be ready to hoof it fast as you can back for camp."
Anderssen asked, "What about you?"
"I'll meet you at the joint in the road. Now go on!"
Pushing their equipment before them, first the shorter, stockier Furberg then the taller, rail-thin Anderssen slithered through the hole. The mismatched pair vanished into the darkness.
Colonel Hogan had ordered them to set the timers to go off after their return to base. Hochstetter's arrival made it impossible. Olsen had no choice. He had to blow the barn right away and pray they could make it back to camp before the Gestapo rolled through the gates. He'd have just enough time to do this right. No chance for a repeat.
Outside, Hochstetter called instructions to his men. He was headed for the barn.
With a final, frantic twist of the screw, Olsen attached the final wire, completing the circuit. A quick glance around the barn's interior showed everything to be ready. With infinite care, Olsen set the timer for two minutes, placed it on the ground at the base of a support post, sprinkled a camouflaging layer of hay over the timer and connections then ran like hell for the hole in the wall.
Olsen's luck held until the moment he cleared the narrow gap and climbed to his feet. He turned to his left and locked eyes with the Gestapo Lieutenant who stood near the back of the dilapidated house. Olsen took one step toward the woods before a burst of machine gun fire drove him back into the barn's shadow. He hunkered down behind a rubbish heap filled mostly with old metal barrels and frantically sought a way out.
Tufts of dirt and grass sprang up around Olsen. Pinpricks of pain from stone, perhaps even fragments of bullets or shrapnel from the metal drums, stung his skin. The Gestapo had him pinned down in the shadow of the barn. He dared not cross the open ground, but considering the amount of explosives he'd laid out, staying put would be just as lethal.
HH
Lieutenant Schiller's cries of alarm caught Wolfgang Hochstetter in the open barn door, his flashlight beam piercing the interior gloom. A miasma of dead and rotten odors burned his nostrils. He had time for a momentary glimpse of the three corpses within the structure before the more immediate threat took precedence.
Knowing in his head that he'd find his cousin murdered was nothing compared to the reality of discovering his body. Raging hot enough to bare his teeth, Hochstetter drew his sidearm, moved to the corner of the barn, and examined the situation.
"Schiller! What is going on?"
"One man, Herr Major! Behind the barn. We have him pinned behind some barrels."
"Excellent! Someone must pay for the death of Captain von Hippel and his patrol. I will start with this man. Capture him alive. I don't care how badly you have to damage him, but I want him alive!"
HH
Fire from three different quarters caught the Gestapo man behind the car. He jerked and fell to the ground like a stringless puppet. More gunfire erupted, forcing the remaining three Germans to shift their positions.
Momentarily forgotten, Brian Olsen pushed away from the wall and raced for the relative safety of the forest. Bullets whistled past his ears. Trusting his teammates to cover his retreat, Olsen dug in and ran faster.
HH
His driver went down, forcing both Hochstetter and his guard to duck down behind cover. Judging by the number of weapons, they faced at least three more enemy saboteurs. They'd chosen their positions well, forcing the Germans to take the first available if not necessarily the most defensible cover. Hochstetter himself hunkered down beside the wheel well of his own car, keeping it's bulk between him and the enemy. If he knew what was good for him, Lt. Schiller would make certain the enemy at the back of the barn offered no threat to his superior.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hochstetter saw a black-dressed figure speed away from the barn into the darkness of the woods. Something in the way the enemy agent ran hinted at an almost panicked desperation, something beyond simply escaping a bullet.
Instincts honed by years of violence, usually that which he himself inflicted, screamed a warning. Something in his sense memory brought back the stink of the barn. He recalled something beneath the overall rot and the sickly sweet scent of dead bodies, something dangerously familiar.
Kerosene.
"They have set the barn to explode! Get away from the buildings! Run!"
The blast caught Hochstetter in mid leap, tossing him over the boot of his car like a straw doll.
HH
Olsen barreled into Rivera before realizing how close he'd come to the sharpshooter's position. Before he could order withdrawal, the barn exploded, swallowing the entire area in a blinding ball of white light. The concussion threw both Olsen and Rivera off their feet. From head to heel, his skin pressed against his skeleton. Every muscle felt the force of the blast. A wave of heat instantly dried their camouflage blacking and the skin underneath.
Cinders rained down all around them, lighting additional spot blazes. Rivera rolled across the ground to smother several smoldering embers where they tried to ignite his clothing. Olsen did the same with his knit cap and two spots on his left leg.
Riding an adrenaline rush, Olsen turned back to study the devastation. The barn was gone, reduced to a splinter-lined, twelve-foot-deep hole in the ground. What little remained burned with a blue-white light. All around the area, spot fires burned as heat and scattered accelerants caught on grass, trash, trees, anything flammable. Unrecognizable fragments of metal peppered the vicinity and glowed red-hot. The blast flattened the remains of the house, setting it and the destroyed windmill ablaze.
Twenty seconds after the initial blast, the gas in von Hippel's demolished car exploded, adding to the din.
Ears roaring with white noise, Sergeant Olsen barely noted when Anderssen and Furberg scooped himself and Rivera to their feet and moved deeper into the forest.
"Hochstetter!" Olsen coughed smoke and dust from his lungs. "Did anyone see what happened to him? Is he still alive?"
"Can't say, sir," Furberg reported, his voice a distant burr through the white noise, barely recognizable, "but I saw at least one of them climbing to his feet. Can't tell if it's the Major or not."
"If Hochstetter's down," Rivera said, "we have a little time. If he's not, he'll head straight for Stalag 13."
"I managed to do a bit of damage to Hochstetter's car, including taking out the right rear tire. That might give us a little time. Not a lot, but some." Anderssen settled his supplies more firmly on his back. Grinning, he asked, "You guys ready for a moonlight run?"
"Like we have a choice?" Olsen sniped. "Come on!"
A/N: I'd originally intended to end it at the point where Olsen "ran like hell for the hole in the wall." Would you have killed me? Yep, thought so... but then, is this place any better? hee