Berlin – 24 July 1944
Jan and Elisabeth peered down from the rooftop, lying down to keep their silhouettes as small as possible against the rising sun. The area in front of Jan's family bakery was closed off. There were three military trucks on the street, and dozens of soldiers on patrol. Curious and concerned neighbours watched from their homes or attempted to get close, but those that did were blocked by the soldiers.
Two soldiers were guarding the door, which was open. Soldiers were coming and going from the bakery. Jan counted eighteen soldiers outside, including the ones guarding the door. Half were busy blocking the road, while the other half were just loitering around in front of the bakery or making the rounds. His mother was nowhere to be seen.
"She must still be inside," Jan said to Elisabeth. "We need to get her out of there. Let's go."
Jan was completely focused on the situation, his senses dulled to everything else.
"Jan, I know this is important and I'm with you. But we need to really think this through. There're more than a dozen soldiers down there, and there's probably more inside. We can't go in guns blazing. Our survival isn't guaranteed, let alone your mother's. For all we know, she could get caught in the crossfire."
"What do you suggest we do then?" Jan asked as he turned to her, the frustration and impatience clear on his face.
"We need reinforcements. We should try and gather more of our brothers and sisters."
"That'd take too much time. Who knows when they'll take her out of there? And if they do, we won't be able to find her. We need to act now."
Elisabeth pondered for a moment, and then nodded to herself.
"You're right. Do you have a plan?"
Jan was silent.
"I was sort of hoping you'd have an idea…" Jan muttered.
Elisabeth sighed.
"If only we'd got here sooner… Or could seven wait until it was dark. Our every move here is exposed…"
The two of them went silent for some time, wracking their brains trying to figure out how to get inside.
"Jan, is there a back door?"
"Yes. Why didn't I think of that?"
"It's probably guarded. But maybe not as much as the front road. Come on."
They descended from the rooftop, making their way down the wall of the building into an empty alleyway. They pulled back their hoods and went out into the street. They went wide around the street to avoid the soldiers and went into the first alley they saw, not unlike the alley they dropped into. They put on their hoods and climbed up the wall, reaching the roofs once again. Once above, they went across the roofs towards Jan's house.
The roof was angled, so that the front half sloped down towards the street while the back half sloped down towards the backyard. Jan and Elisabeth made sure they were crawling on the back half to avoid being seen by the soldiers. Reaching roughly the middle of the roof, they took in the view.
Right below them was Jan's backyard. It was nothing special, just grass surrounded on three sides by a tall, wooden fence. On those same three sides were the backyards of the other townhouses. From where they were lying, they saw no soldiers in the open area of the backyard. They peered directly down, towards the backdoor which two soldiers were guarding, one on each side.
Jan and Elisabeth looked at each other, nodded understandingly, and brought themselves to a crouch. They engaged their hidden blades. They counted 3… 2... 1…
And then they jumped, one soldier each. They sank their blades into the soldiers' necks, killing them silently. There was little noise, except for the thud when the soldiers' bodies fell onto the grass. They pulled out their blades and dragged the lifeless soldiers a bit farther from the door, then took their places on each side. Jan hesitated to open the door. They didn't know whether there was somebody waiting for them or not. Elisabeth closed her eyes and focused.
"What is it?" Jan asked her.
After a few seconds, she opened her eyes.
"There are ten soldiers inside. One roaming the hallway, near us. Two are in the kitchen. Four are upstairs, rummaging through the rooms, I think. Three are in the living room, with your mother."
Jan nodded. He thanked whatever God existed for Elisabeth's sixth sense.
"Is the soldier roaming the hallway facing us?"
Elisabeth closed her eyes again.
"Yes, but he's walking. He's either going to go outside, or he'll take a right under the stairs and be on the left of the door. I'll tell you which when it happens."
Jan nodded and waited. The footsteps, though faint, were audible. They slightly got louder as the soldier came near. Jan readied his blade. If the soldier opened the door, he'd stab him right in the neck then and there and catch his corpse. But he didn't, and the soldier took a right under the stairs.
"Now!" Elisabeth said to him.
Jan quickly opened the door and rushed through it. Before the soldier could even respond, Jan's blade had found its mark. The soldier soon turned into a lifeless corpse, and Jan let him down gently onto the floor. Blood dripped onto the old wooden floor. Jan remembered the last time there was blood on the floor in the house, that night they call Kristallnacht when his father was killed trying to help Jews under attack by the Nazis.
He placed those thoughts to the side as Elisabeth entered and closed the door quietly behind her. The doorway that led to the kitchen was right before the turn they were in. The two of them made their way to the edge of the doorway, hugging the wall as to not be seen.
"Where are they facing?" Jan asked Elisabeth in hushed tones.
"They're by the sink, facing each other."
That would be a problem, Jan thought. Going in from the doorway, the sink would be on their right, in the direction of 2 o'clock. So, if Jan made any move, the soldier facing the wall with the doorway would see him. He would have to be really quick. But there was also the problem of noise. There was a doorway connecting the kitchen to the living room, where three more soldiers and his mother were.
"What about the soldiers in the living room? Do they have their backs to the doorway to the kitchen?" Jan asked.
Elisabeth closed her eyes and concentrated.
"Yes, yes they are."
That was one problem out of the way, he thought. But the problem of noise was still there. For some moments, he thought about it. But time wasn't on their side. Any time now, soldiers could come in from the front door. They would immediately see the two Assassins hugging the wall, and they should shoot. And their mission – and their lives – could end then and there.
"I guess there's no other way," Jan whispered to himself.
He turned to Elisabeth.
"There's only one way we can do this. And that's to attack both groups of soldiers at once."
"What? I get attacking the ones in the kitchen, but the living room? There are three of them, Jan. Will you be able to do it quickly enough that they won't be able to make any noise?"
"I don't know, but just standing here isn't going to do anything. This is the only thing I could think of."
"How about we make some noise, draw some of them away?" Elisabeth asked.
But Jan shook his head. "Too many variables. We don't know if only one from the kitchen would go, or only one from the living room. Besides, where would they go? If they go towards the back door, they'll see the dead soldier lying there." He pointed at the corpse across them, under the stairs. "This might be our only option."
"It's risky."
"I know. But there's no other way."
Elisabeth sighed. "Alright. Let's do it. I'll handle the soldiers in the kitchen. I'll leave the living room to you."
Jan nodded. "We'll have to be quick. I can't go to the living room doorway without the soldiers in the kitchen seeing me. So, when I move, you have to move too. From the doorway, I'll immediately go into the living room. Ready?"
Elisabeth nodded. Satisfied, Jan turned around and prepared himself. He engaged his blades and crouched like a professional runner about to start.
And then off he went. He passed the kitchen doorway. He had no idea whether the two soldiers there saw him or not. He made his way to the living room doorway and entered it, as fast as lightning. The three soldiers there had just barely turned their heads when Jan came upon them. The two closest to him died immediately. He pounced on them like a tiger would its prey, bringing them down to the ground right in front of his mother. He heard the crack of a shot and immediately felt a searing pain in his shoulder. He rolled towards the last soldier and stabbed him several times in the stomach. The soldier grunted with each thrust, and soon he fell back, blood spilling out of his guts at an alarming rate.
Elisabeth appeared in the doorway. "Jan, watch out!"
Jan turned around to see the soldiers looking at them through the window, their guns raised. He only had time to run towards his mother and push her onto the ground, using his own body as a shield, before the bullets came through the window. His mother was screaming in fear, as he tried to keep her body as low as possible on the ground. Then Jan heard Elisabeth shoot back at them. For a moment, the bullets abated as the soldiers took cover. Jan pulled himself up slightly and quickly checked his mother for any injuries. Thankfully, there were none.
"Jan?" she said, through rugged breath and on the verge of breaking into tears.
"Mom," he replied. "Stay low and take cover, okay?"
He pulled her up slightly and brought her to the corner. She made herself as small a target as possible, hugging her knees and lowering her neck in between her legs. Then Jan went under the window, taking out his own gun.
"Elisabeth!" Jan shouted.
"What?" she shouted back from the hallway.
"Let's take turns!" he shouted as he heard her shoot. "You shoot! I shoot while you take cover and reload, and so on!"
"Alright!"
Elisabeth emptied her magazine. Jan heard the screams of some of the soldiers as they got shot. And then the shots stopped, before Elisabeth shouted from the hallway.
"Empty!"
On cue, Jan leaned out of the shattered living room window and shot back. He didn't have much time to think. His mind went on autopilot, going from one target to the next. For each target, he unloaded one shot first. If the target fell or disappeared, he immediately moved to another target. He kept doing this until his own magazine was out.
"Empty!" he shouted, before Elisabeth continued in his stead.
This continued for a good while, until Elisabeth changed what she shouted.
"I'm out of ammo!"
Without immediately replying, Jan stood up and kept shooting. As he did so, his hand went to his pocket. He only had one magazine left too. When his ammunition ran out, he crouched. Elisabeth was already next to him, clutching the rifle of one of the dead soldiers. She immediately leaned out and started shooting.
"Shit!" she shouted as she shot. "They're coming in through the front door, I can't shoot them!"
"I got it!" Jan said as he put in his last magazine. He rushed to the entryway and aimed his gun straight at the door, hiding behind a cabinet.
When the door opened to reveal a soldier, Jan shot him. It did not kill him, but he fell back shouting in pain. The other soldiers took cover on either side of the door. Alternately, they leaned out and shot at him. In between, Jan would come out of cover to try and shoot back at them. Every time, he counted how many bullets he had left. He couldn't keep this up.
A head appeared. Purely by instinct, he shot the soldier straight in the head. That left one soldier, who appeared and shot several times at Jan, but the cabinet protected him. As the click signalling that the soldier had spent all his bullets came, Jan immediately came up and shot him. He emptied the rest of his magazine on the last soldier.
"I'm out!" Jan shouted as he ran back into the living room.
Elisabeth was firing from the window as he came in. Jan went to the dead soldiers lying in the middle of the room. He took one of their rifles and scrounged up the ammunition they had on them, before running back to Elisabeth's side. Armed once again, the two of them went back to their previous routine. Elisabeth shoots, takes cover as she reloads, Jan shoots, takes cover as he reloads.
But then more trucks came. More soldiers came out. The hail of bullets from their enemies increased. And eventually, they were forced to take cover as the pressure was too much.
"What do we do, Jan? We can't stay here."
"Maybe the back… but we'd have nowhere to run. Mother can't climb up like we do."
As he was thinking, the soldiers on the other side were shouting something. Right after that, a grenade came hurtling through the window.
"Shit!" Jan shouted as he instinctively ran towards his mother. He put himself over his mother, shielding her from the blast.
And it almost ripped his ear drums out. He felt pain in his back. Shrapnel, he thought. But it didn't feel too serious.
"Jan, are you okay?!" his mother asked, overwhelmed with concern and panic.
"I'm fine, mother…" he said, pulling himself up.
Lots of footsteps. Orders being shouted.
"Hands in the air! Now!" belted the officer who had just entered the room. Six soldiers to his left and right had their guns aimed straight at Jan, his mother, and Elisabeth.
Jan cursed himself under his breath. He stood in front of his mother protectively, shielding her from them. A thousand thoughts ran through his head. What should he do? What could he do? He scanned the room, each soldier, Elisabeth who was recovering in the other corner. But it was all clear to him. There was nothing he could do. But still, he grasped at each possibility in his mind, knowing that most of them would result in his death. And worse, the deaths of Elisabeth and his mother.
"That's quite enough, Jan," said someone coming from the hallway.
A voice he knew.
A voice he knew very, very well.
And then he came out of the hallway, right into Jan's line of sight.
Jan's jaw dropped in shock.
"Uncle Rudolf?"