Shadow Warrior: Destiny of a Mutant (31 page)

The
Eyrie

After rendezvousing with Will, the team removed their parachutes and buried them quickly. Contact was made with Brunner and his team to make sure they had landed safely. As Will and his team were making their way to the transport vehicles, which were hidden in the woods off the road, Will secretly transported all of the parachutes, including those belonging to Brunner and his team, and other gear to the transport truck and made them invisible and intangible to the touch.

After arriving at the vehicles, they quickly loaded up and proceeded towards the
Eyrie’s
secret location, which was about ten miles due east of their drop zone. A couple of miles before they arrived at the turn off for the road to the facility, Schultz, who was in the back of the transport truck, was dropped off to fulfill his part of the mission.

It would be Schultz’s job to intercept any radio or telephone traffic out of the
Eyrie
should anyone call to check on the legitimacy of Will’s story of transferring the prisoners and to block incoming calls while the team was inside of the facility.

The device that Will had given Schultz to accomplish his part of the mission was unlike anything he had ever seen. Will had shown him how to use it while they were flying to their destination. Will had also given him, and the rest of the team, a black-colored metal bracelet for identification purposes. His men didn’t know that each bracelet also contained a tracking device so he could find them in case they got separated, lost, or captured.

There was only one road in and out of the facility, which was up a steep drive in the mountains. The road leading up towards it was just as it had been described by Donovan’s source - a dense canopy of trees covering it which prevented anyone flying over the location from realizing there was a road there. The Nazis had definitely chosen the location well.

As Will and his team got closer, Will used his super vision powers to spot the hidden anti-aircraft and machine gun nests located in several locations in and around the facility. He mentally mapped their locations in his mind for when it was necessary for Brunner’s team to take them out of commission. He then quietly contacted the team on his radio and told them of the enemy’s locations. Hauser questioned Will how he knew they were there, and he advised Hauser that this information had come from Donovan’s source. Hauser did not question Will’s answer or why he had not said anything to Brunner earlier.

As they were within 200 yards of the secret entrance, there was a checkpoint in the middle of the road with no less than six armed guards that were visible. Will found another ten concealed in the woods surrounding the mountain in camouflage using his vision powers.

Brunner and his bunch are going to have their hands full,
he thought to himself.

As they approached the checkpoint, Will told Serrano, who was driving the black Daimler-Benz, closed top, SS officer’s staff car, to stop as two heavily armed guards stepped out in front of the car, one with his hand up directing them to stop. As they came to a halt, the guards warily approached the car.

“State your business, Corporal! This is a highly restricted area!” asserted a burly sergeant.

“I am driving
SS Obergruppenführer Hoffmeier
to facilitate the transfer of thirteen prisoners into the custody of the SS where they are to be taken to Berlin immediately in the troop transport truck directly behind us, Sergeant!” retorted Serrano.

Before the sergeant could say anything, Schechter, disguised as
Standartenführer
Klaus Miller, interrupted.

“Corporal! What is the holdup? The
Obergruppenführer
is under orders from the
Führer
himself! Is there a problem?”

Upon hearing the voice in the back seat, the sergeant looked through the window and saw a colonel and a general in black SS uniforms sitting in the back. He immediately came to attention, gave the Nazi salute, and loudly barked “Heil Hitler!”

Will and Schechter both returned the salute.

“Begging the
Standartenführer’s
pardon, but I am under strict orders regarding who is allowed to enter this facility, sir. I was not informed of a prisoner transfer happening today.”

“I wasn’t aware that the
Führer
needed to explain himself to you, Sergeant. Corporal, show the sergeant our transfer orders which were signed by the
Führer
personally.”

Serrano then pulled out the phony transfer orders that had “Hitler’s” signature on them, along with other high ranking members of the Nazi command structure in Berlin.

The sergeant visibly went a little pale at seeing the document, which was a perfect forgery, made by Will, with a little help from his alien technology. The sergeant wouldn’t know Hitler’s signature from anyone else’s, but he was not about to argue with an SS general and colonel; he had heard stories about what had happened to others who had made that mistake. Besides, the
Eyrie
was such a secret that for them to show up in this manner lent credibility to their story as well.

“Lift the gate!” the sergeant said immediately to one of his men, who opened it quickly. “My apologies to you and the
Obergruppenführer
for any delay, sir. Please proceed. One of my men will escort you to the entrance at once,” he said to Schechter.

“You were just doing your duty, Sergeant. I will inform your superiors of your dedication and thoroughness.”

“Thank you,
Herr
Standartenführer!
Heil Hitler!”

Will and Schechter again returned the salute, and then they proceeded through the checkpoint, following the sergeant’s man to the entrance.

“Well, the easy part’s over,” said Schechter to Will.

Will simply nodded.

As they drove past, the sergeant lifted the handset of his phone.

“Colonel Hoffman’s office,
Bitte
.” After a brief pause, a man answered the phone at the other end. “There are two SS officers, a general and a colonel, here to pick up the prisoners. They have orders personally signed by the
Führer.
Please inform Colonel Hoffman.
Danke
.”

***

The officer in charge of the
Eyrie
was an SS Colonel named Frederich Hoffman. He was the winner of the Iron Cross and other medals for bravery. He had lost an eye from a hand grenade that landed too close to him during the invasion of Poland. As a result he wore a black eye patch over his left eye and had a nasty scar on the left side of his face as well.

Hoffman was widely known as a sadistic bastard who had run a
Vernichtungslager
, or “death camp,” prior to being assigned to the
Eyrie.
He was very imaginative when it came to devising methods of torture or other techniques to extract information from his prisoners.

One of his favorites was to bring a family of Jews into an interrogation room, accuse the father of some contrived crime, and tell the father he needed to confess. When the father refused, he would have several of his men gang rape the man’s daughter, or daughters, no matter what her age, in front of him and the rest of her family, stating that if he confessed the rest of the family would live. If he didn’t have daughters, the man’s wife would be raped instead. After the father or husband ‘confessed,’ he then systematically shot and killed the whole family - saving the father for last.

Hoffman also liked the
company
of girls as young as twelve and had defiled several of the local girls in nearby towns and villages. Some of them never made it back home alive.

Hoffman had been raised by a father that was a strict disciplinarian as well as a German Army officer. His mother had been an alcoholic
hausfrau
who ignored the beatings given to Hoffman by his father for the slightest infraction. He respected his father, but he also hated him with a passion. As a young man Hoffman showed a talent for the piano, and his father pushed him to practice several hours per day, even when he was ill. He eventually tired of playing, as his passion faded from the years of his fathers’ brutal treatment; however, quitting was not an option. When Hoffman was 17, he auditioned for the last open position to enter the Berlin Conservatory. Hoffman‘s performance was outstanding, but he was defeated by a young Jewish boy who was better. After learning of his defeat by a Jew, his father beat him with a belt so hard it broke his skin in several places. His mother just watched, saying nothing.

His father died of a heart attack not long after Hoffman’s twentieth birthday; he didn’t bother to attend the funeral. His mother died two years later after washing down a cocktail of sleeping pills with a fifth of scotch. He didn’t attend her funeral either.

As an only child, he inherited the modest house he grew up in, and he promptly sold it after his mother’s death without a second thought.

At 18 Hoffman, having failed in his bid to enter the Conservatory, joined the German Army. Years later, he became fascinated with the rhetoric spouted by a young firebrand Austrian after hearing him speak at a rally. That man was Adolph Hitler. He believed Hitler’s maniacal oratory regarding the Jews, and he learned to hate them as much as he hated his father.

He became fast friends with Hitler and swore his undying loyalty and his life to him. After Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he rewarded Hoffman’s loyalty by promotion after promotion and by giving him whatever command he wanted.

When the
Eyrie
was built, Hitler gave that command to him as well.

The White House

Oval Office

The President sat with his head resting between his hands. After Will had left for Fort Benning to train his troops, the president had ordered Oppenheimer to the Oval Office for a serious conversation regarding the status of the atomic bomb project on which his group of geniuses was working. The president learned that Oppenheimer’s team had a working prototype, and although it was not the final version which would eventually be used on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it would be more than capable of destroying a mountain laboratory.

The president made his decision and ordered the deployment of the prototype atomic bomb they had completed to destroy the
Eyrie.
He ordered it loaded onto a B-29 bomber and sent it to destroy the Nazi facility, the aliens, and their spacecraft. He just couldn’t fully trust that the mysterious Colonel Clark and his team would be able to complete the task. The bomber left a couple of hours after Clark’s team had left.

He shuddered at killing Clark and the soldiers under Clark’s command, but there were much bigger stakes, such as the destiny and survival of the United States and its allies, and possibly even the world. He prayed that Clark and his team would accomplish their mission and would be able to get out before the bomb struck. The president wondered if Clark could actually survive such a blast, but he found it difficult to believe that he could. He thought about contacting Clark through the commlink device but decided against it.

God help me,
the president thought after giving the green light for the bomb’s deployment.

The
Eyrie

Lieutenant Hans Reinhard, Hoffman’s assistant, knocked on the door to Hoffman‘s office. After a couple of seconds, he heard the colonel say, “Come in.”

As Reinhard opened the door to Hoffman‘s office, he said, “Begging the Colonel’s pardon, but I just received a call from the checkpoint. There are two SS officers, a general, and a colonel here to pick up the prisoners. Apparently, they have orders that were personally signed by the
Führer
and
Reichsführer.
”

Upon hearing this, Hoffman raised his eyebrows.

“What? Berlin did not call to let me know of their early removal. They were not supposed to transfer the prisoners for at least another month.”

“What do you want me to do, Herr Colonel?”

“I will let you know after I talk with them. I suppose that I should go and greet them personally.”

“
Jawohl
.”

Hoffman got up from behind his desk, put on his black tunic and hat, smoothed down the front of the jacket, and went to meet the two officers.

I wonder why I was not informed of this early transfer?
Hoffman pondered.
But knowing the SS as I do, nothing would surprise me.

East Side of the
Eyrie

Brunner was the first one to find and eliminate a hidden sniper with a hundred yard head shot. At first, he did not even realize that the weapon had fired as there was no recoil and absolutely no noise. The only indication that he had eliminated his target was by seeing a little cloud of red mist erupting from where the sentry’s head had been only seconds earlier.

Holy shit! This thing is unfucking-believable,
he thought after observing the kill shot. He quietly reported his kill to Wakefield and Becker via his throat mike.

Becker was the next one to report a kill from almost two hundred yards about five minutes later. Wakefield followed suit ten minutes with a report of his first kill.

Becker thought,
Three down, no telling how many more to go.
He then sat down and took a quick sip of water from his canteen.

His thoughts drifted back to his days as a cop on the Los Angeles Police Department. He had been one of the youngest homicide cops in the department’s history when America became embroiled in the war. As a detective, his German language skills had helped him solve the high profile murder of a local politician with a dark secret in which a young German-speaking prostitute was the only witness to the crime.

After some issues arose on his police department, Becker decided to join the Marine Corps like his father, who had served in World War I. Becker’s family was originally from Bavaria and Austria and eventually immigrated to Los Angeles, where Becker was born. After joining the Corps, Becker had seen his share of combat, both as a grunt in the field and as a sniper. He had seen action in Italy, where he was assigned as a sniper on an advance team. He now had thirty-five confirmed kills as a sniper, and knew that number would go higher after today.

He had also been in London during several bombing runs by the Germans. At the time Becker was approached by Will to join his team for this mission, he was serving in London as attaché to a military intelligence group, but had been preparing to be deployed to the Pacific for more combat operations as a sniper. Becker had been toying with the idea of returning to the police department after the war, but now he was seriously contemplating going to law school and becoming a lawyer. After this mission, he would talk to Brunner, the lawyer in the group, to get some ideas.

Main Entrance of the
Eyrie

Hoffman and a contingent of four armed soldiers were waiting at the main entrance to the
Eyrie
when Will and Schechter entered the facility, along with their escort from the check point. Serrano exited the staff car to let Will and Schechter out of the back of it. He then stood stiffly at attention outside of the vehicle. Upon seeing the general, Hoffman and his men snapped to attention and threw up their best Nazi salutes.

“Heil Hitler!”

Will and Schechter returned the salutes.

Will then stated to Hoffman, “I am General Hoffmeier. This is my assistant, Colonel Miller.” The two colonels shook hands. Will remained cool and aloof, and did not offer his hand.

“Welcome to our humble facility, General. I must say this is quite a surprise. I was not informed of your impending visit. I don‘t believe we‘ve ever met,” said Hoffman.

“You were not informed of my visit because I chose not to inform you of it, Colonel,” Will said. “I have found that the best way to determine how good security is at a facility is to drop in unannounced. Wouldn’t you agree, Colonel?” Will ignored the comment about not ever meeting Hoffman before.

Hoffman was taken aback by Will’s statement. He should have expected nothing less than from an SS general, but the abruptness of it still surprised him.

“Yes, Herr General. I totally agree.”

“Furthermore, I don’t trust that our communication systems are totally secure, and if I had alerted you, it might have also alerted the Americans or the British. We have taken many measures to ensure that the existence and location of this facility remains a secret from our enemies.”

“Yes, of course, Herr General. Let’s go to my office, shall we?”

Will and Schechter then followed Hoffman to his office. Hoffman’s four armed guards waited outside. Serrano stayed with the staff car. Their escort was dismissed to return to the checkpoint. The rest of Will’s men stayed with their vehicle as well.

They entered Hoffman’s office a few minutes later. Hoffman offered them refreshments, which they declined. They declined an offer to sit as well. It was obvious to Hoffman that the general was not one to waste time on social pleasantries.

Will noticed that Hoffman’s office was adorned with several valuable paintings. He recognized a Degas, a Matisse and a Cézanne hanging on the walls - no doubt stolen from their rightful owners by the invading Nazis. A personally autographed photo of Hitler hung in a place of prominence as well. Hoffman’s desk was made from expensive Brazilian walnut; two dark leather couches sat across from each other.

“I see you are a collector of fine art,” said Will.

“They were gifts from the
Führer
,” Hoffman replied with more than a hint of pride in his voice. “Now, General, I was informed that you are here to transfer some prisoners to Berlin? What prisoners would those be, sir? This is a research facility. We do not house prisoners here I’m afraid,” said Hoffman, his face stoic and unreadable.

Will looked at Hoffman with that piercing stare of his, which made Hoffman very uneasy.

“Colonel, do not insult me! I am here for the thirteen aliens that are being housed here along with their spacecraft and weapons! The same weapons that are wreaking havoc amongst the Allied forces! They are to be transferred into my custody immediately! I will be taking them to Berlin today for further interrogation on orders from the
Führer
himself!”

Hoffman was totally unprepared for Will’s tirade.

“I…I’m sorry, General. But you must understand my hesitation in this matter.”

“I understand completely, Colonel, and I commend you for it. But you must understand that I am not someone who likes having their orders questioned!”

“Yes, sir. I understand. I was not questioning your orders, sir, but it was my understanding that the prisoners were not to be transferred to Berlin for at least another month.”

“I do not question the
Führer,
Colonel. Friends or not, you would be wise not to do so either - it would be your last mistake on this earth.”

Hoffman was totally unsettled by the look on Will’s face and the menacing tone in his voice.

“No sir. But, if I may, I need to see the orders you have.”

Will nodded to Schechter, who handed over the phony orders to Hoffman.

Hoffman looked shocked to see the
Führer’s
signature, which he recognized from seeing it many times before, along with the
Reichsführer
and
other high ranking Nazi party officials.

“These documents appear to be in order, General. However, as a formality, I must have one of my men contact Berlin to confirm these orders.”

“Do as you must, Colonel. I would if I were you. I will be sure to inform
Reichsführer
Himmler of your thoroughness personally. While you are doing this, I wish to see these aliens for myself.”

“Yes, sir. I will have my men take you there now, General.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

Hoffman went to the door and called in one of his men from the waiting room to escort Will and Schechter to the area where the aliens were being housed. After they left, Hoffman ordered Reinhard to contact Berlin for verification of the orders.

***

Before entering the facility, Will had begun searching for the Krelians with his vision powers. Due to the size of the facility, it took him several minutes to locate them. They were located on two different levels: a group of seven on the fifth level and a group of six on the sixth level. He located their spacecraft on the tenth level. He had not had a chance to locate their cache of weapons before entering Hoffman‘s office.