Karl could count on one hand the number of times he'd felt nervous before a mission:
His first mission, his assassination of Vahlen, and now this.
He felt feverish, his mind wandering off on its own down dimly-lit trails stretching years into the future. He almost wished that this opportunity hadn't been afforded to them; that the eggheads in intelligence had missed it. They'd put the course of the war, the probability of peace, and the making of history in the hands of one quiet 20-something from Berlin and the rifle in his hand.
They'd put his fatherland's future in his hands.
Every hour the consequences of success or failure seemed to grow bigger; he could succeed, cause a power struggle within the Reich and give the Allies a fast route to victory, and open his countrymen's eyes to the horrors of Nazism. He could go home with his family after the war to a hero's welcome.
His success could lead to someone more competent taking the reins, leading a successful counterattack, pushing the Allies out of Africa and ultimately back into Britain. He'd be vilified as the man who destroyed victory with a single bullet on one half of the Atlantic and the man who murdered the Aryan messiah on the other.
He could fail, and strengthen the Nazi party's grip on the mind of his homeland.
He could fail and die, leaving behind his elderly father, his mother who'd already lost one son, and his sister who would have to provide for them both. All without a single letter in eight months.
He took a deep breath, and held it before exhaling. He took another deep breath, held it, and exhaled.
I'm thinking too much. Karl thought.
The brass thought that this was for the best and trusted him for the job. He had to share their faith. God, that was hard.
Instead of thinking about the ramifications of his mission's outcome, he focused on easier things, like technical details.
Scouts had reported a point along Tobruk's walls where there were no snipers. There was a motor pool directly below, a dip in the landscape where rocks and shadows hid most things at night, and minimal guard patrols along the wall. Most of it defenses were at the mouth of the dell in the sand, primarily heavy artillery. It would be suicide for even the LRDG's fast-striking jeeps, but a single sniper, if he was very, very careful…
Then he'd be in the city, and he'd have to contend with guards that were on edge and patrolling every street by the dozens. He could use the rooftops, but they were patrolled too. His target would be in the midst of the city, in a small café. Karl's evac route was directly behind it, leading out into the wilderness.
Meanwhile Markson would be going to an outpost miles away with Drew to lie in wait for either Karl to come back alive and successful or for the target to come through in his car. He was sure they'd succeed if he failed, and he counted on Drew to get them out of there quickly before the city garrison and SS could launch a man-hunt.
For the moment they were stone silent. There was a brittle stillness in truck, loaded and cutting. Karl hadn't exchanged a full sentence with them in weeks. Drew had tried (and still tried) but Sean and the others had given up after he killed Vahlen and still wouldn't come to the campfire.
Markson emphatically ignored him, still prickly about how Karl had brushed off his offer to join them last week, and likely upset that Karl had been picked over him for the main mission. There had been an almost child-like excitement on his face when they were informed of who they'd be assassinating, and it collapsed into a sulky glower when he was told that Karl would likely be taking the actual shot. Drew, on the other hand, seemed more worried mile by mile. His shoulders were tense and Karl suspected that if it wasn't so essential that he keep his eyes on the road (or critically, the lack thereof), he'd be constantly looking over his shoulder for them.
Drew stopped abruptly; making Karl's head hit the back of Sean's headrest. "Sorry!" He hissed. Karl looked about. This was his stop.
He got out with his rifle in hand. "Karl!"
He turned back. Drew was leaning over to look at him worriedly. "Are you going to be okay?"
It briefly threw Karl off. What kind of question is that? Why ask such a redundant question to a soldier? He was silent until he felt that he had a good answer: "I know the risks."
"You need a spotter." First four words Markson had said to him in a week.
"You were assigned to the other outpost with Drew."
"Hell, Drew can take care of that himself. The bastard will pass barely twenty feet from the hide."
"Somebody needs to drive the truck. What'll we do if he's cut off from it?"
"If you need a spotter, then I can go myself, Karl." Drew said. "Besides, I highly doubt that the target will survive both of you."
"It'll be hard enough to get in alone. Both of us will never sneak in."
"You need somebody watch your six while you're taking the shot at least." Markson retorted. He climbed out of the truck.
Karl had a flash of Brauer turning his head to look at Karl, and the building he was in exploding a heartbeat later.
"No. This won't work out Markson." He said harshly. "There will be reinforcements at that outpost. I don't want Drew facing them alone."
"You're wading into a sea of SS." Drew pointed out. "Alone."
"That's how it always is. I always come back don't I?" It's just that Brauer didn't.
Drew furrowed his brow and sighed. "I can't convince you to take Sean with you can I? C'mon, mate."
Markson stood, glaring at Karl for a moment, and then got back into the truck without a word.
"Come back alive." Drew said before they drove off.
Karl got in reasonably easily, and found a disturbing surprise in the form of a Nazi officer who'd been hanged from the walls, ostensibly for pissing off the Fuhrer.
Otherwise he found no surprises; the streets were heavily patrolled, the rooftops also patrolled but not so heavily and there were concerns even among the officers that they were, in fact, being sent a double. Troublingly Karl found a note that seemed to support this: a soldier had overheard "the Fuhrer" boasting of serving on the SMS Defflinger, when Karl knew for a fact that he'd been in the Bavarian Reserve Regiments.
But Karl had his orders; he was to assassinate the man who had come to Tobruk.
He found a spot in a rooftop garden that had a good view of the area and a good defensive position. He trapped the house he was on to make sure that no Nazi that might be in it could wander up and shoot him in the back.
"Oi Fairburne, what'll you do if you ever find Hitler on your mission? Shoot him in the ball?" Murray had once asked while they were around the campfire. It was a purely hypothetical question then, and Karl responded with a joke.
"Come on, Murray. You know that even I can't hit a target that small." The camp had roared with laughter.
It felt like it took half the night for the clock to strike seven, but Karl was only on his perch an hour.
The courtyard slowly filled up with SS and officers all that time.
He looked over the ledge when he heard a vehicle pull into the courtyard. It was a proper car, white and new, utterly out of place among the desert dust. All the officers that had been smoking and lounging about scrambled briefly, straightening ties and pulling away from their conversations to line up. An SS opened the door.
The target stepped out.
He looked exactly like in his photographs and also not, in the lifeless way that photographs were. It was so strange to see the real thing, even stranger to see, with his own eyes, the man who without even realizing it, altered Karl's fate so fundamentally that ultimately led him back here, with a rifle.
All uncertainties of the future and politics emptied from Karl's head like a gust of wind blowing leaves off the surface of water.
Da ist er. He thought.
The Fuhrer walked past the line of saluting men without a word and settled in a chair at the table.
Just sat there.
Less than a hundred feet away from the end of Karl's rifle with nothing to obstruct the shot. Easiest shot of his career.
It was way too easy.
The Fuhrer picked up a little bell that had been sitting on the table and rang it.
A dozen SS suddenly leapt out of the shadows of the rooftops, shouting, guns going off.
"Wir fanden ihn!"
Two traps Karl set at the entrances to the rooftops detonated suddenly, and one more was thrown across the roof, the cable between the explosives cut.
No time to think. Karl dropped his rifle in favor of his SMG just as the soldiers swarmed across the rooftops.
He clipped two before diving behind cover.
"Sie können nicht vor uns verstecken!" A man who had the hoarse roar of an officer yelled.
Bullets whizzed over Karl's cover.
He reached for the stick grenade in his belt and hurled it over head.
The alarmed shouts went up before the explosion.
At the same time the door that Karl had trapped exploded outwards. He jerked his head up and saw a shadow blotting out the light from inside the house before it was suddenly moving.
He was tackled and slammed into the low mudbrick wall.
He later wouldn't recall his head colliding with it.