The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: Operation Arm Breaker, Part 7 of 17

Department Three knows the officials are on the ground, and they are going to throw everything they have at them. Eberkopf contains the strangest of the Reich’s secret weapons, and they will not hesitate to use any of them to keep them secure.

The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: Operation Arm Breaker is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 7 of Operation Arm Breaker. If you haven’t read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 yet, check them out first.

Content Warnings: Tobacco Use, Death, Gore, Violence, Animal Violence, Gun Violence, Mild Swearing, Nazis

WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 14, 1943
SOUTH OF TAFERTSWEILER
BADEN-ELSAß, NAZI GERMANY

The order to form up came down the line quickly. Cheddarwright was already moving ahead to rejoin the rest of the squad. Grease followed without another word. His finger never left the punt gun's trigger.

Lucky kept pace a few yards behind him. Grease’s prosthetic peg leg had held up well in the volcanic combat conditions. Lucky heard himself and almost stopped in his tracks to spit: that thought felt too close to giving the Romanian praise for his atrocities.

A structure appeared from the haze in front of them, a sturdy brick and stone tavern, its roof sunken and windows long broken but its walls still standing. Scorch marks ran up those walls, but their blackness had been softened by years of weather and covered with persistent ivy. Lucky could make out a dozen mounds around the lone building, the remains of homes. They had walked down the main street of another evacuated town without realizing it, this one razed to the ground and left to the elements.

Grease ignored the burnt husks and hunched low to slip into the tavern. Lucky followed close, noting the old door's splintered hinges and the one sooty boot print beside its broken deadbolt. Goldbrick had already cleared the building.

The general was standing over a table, smoking his cigar stub and leaning on his scarred knuckles while he studied Miller's map. Bastedo, Grand, and Cheddarwright were peering over his wide shoulders. Goldbrick looked up and saw Lucky enter last, then tapped a point of interest.

“Tell them what you just told me,” he ordered Miller. The masked man stepped aside to let Lucky and Grease crowd the table.

“It appears we have reached Tafertsweiler,” Miller told us, resting a gloved finger on a small labeled dot on the map. “It was once famous for this very inn which doubled as an abattoir. Tourists would travel hundreds of kilometers every spring to purchase their apple sausages.”

“Not that part,” the general grumbled.

“Of course, General Stephens,” Miller mumbled. He collected himself, then started again: “We have traveled nearly thirty-and-five-tenths kilometers from the landing zone, eighteen since our encounter with the Waldgeister.”

Lucky didn't know how far or even in what direction they'd walked, and had no idea how Miller had kept track. Lucky slipped Emilia's Cartier watch out of his pocket and was shocked to see that it was only nine in the morning. Time played tricks in the field. Minutes last hours, hours slip past in a second's distraction, and eternity could be slinking around every corner. The De Lisle hung heavy on his neck, but he ignored it and kept listening.

“How do you know how far we walked?” Grease interrupted.

“I counted my steps,” Miller answered, easy as pie. “My standard pace is seventy-three centimeters. At forty-two-thousand-one-hundred-six steps, accounting for combat and back-tracking maneuvers, that makes our distance over thirty kilometers.”

“That is something,” Grease replied, satisfied but confused. He didn't understand Miller yet, and Lucky knew he couldn't explain anything properly. Lucky was no expert when it came to science, particularly the mad variety.

“What is the significance of this town?” Bastedo asked, again annoyed with the green officials in the room.

“It is the last point we may rest before we encounter Eberkopf proper's outer defenses,” Miller explained. On the map, Tafertsweiler was barely an inch from the edge of the massive facility's perimeter. “Once we leave this building, we will be without cover in our enemies' home. We do not know how the compound is designed, but any construction on this grand a scale has similar weaknesses. There will be entrances for vehicles and personnel, as well as ducts to allow air and water circulation. We will survey the facility, penetrate one of these weak points, and proceed to plant our homing beacons.”

“We got to move quick,” Goldbrick added.

“Always,” Cheddarwright said.

“The Eastern European Bureau's rail mortars will launch their pact-breaker barrage in less than four hours. Those shells will land wherever these beacons are,” Miller said. He thumped the mailbox-sized transmitter on the table to illustrate his point. Grease grunted. He had a second transmitter in his massive backpack, making him a walking target until he found a better place to store it.

“What's the hold-up?” he muttered.

“Swig your canteens, checks your magazines, tighten your straps,” Goldbrick ordered. “Lace up your boots.”

The group double-checked their gear. A rattle caught Lucky’s attention and the pill bottle in Bastedo's hand caught his eye. He had one just like it in his pack, a Positive Epinephrine Propagator.

“What are those?” Lucky asked him.

“Strength,” he replied. He took two of the lavender pills and stuck them to the stock of his M13 carbine with rolled hurricane tape, right next to where he'd rest his cheek while aiming. “They slow life down.”

“Right, right,” Lucky said, agreeing with his nonsense.

“Pep pills,” Cheddarwright explained. “They make combat seem slower, like a film running at the wrong speed, if they don't pop your ticker first, that is.”

“Pop your ticker...” Lucky started.

“Hesitation in combat is death, certainly as a heart attack,” Bastedo declared.

“I got three hearts already, don't want to go messing with my rhythms,” Grease interjected. He had laid out an array of pills himself, the pharmacy Doctor P. had sent with him. He had everything from vitamins and antibiotics to anti-inflammatories and skin cremes. Grease read the doctor's scrawled instructions and began throwing back capsules, washing them down with warm canteen water.

“Do you want to change your bandages?” Lucky asked. Grease's olive gauze had gone completely black, soaked through with sweat and coated with ash.

“There’s yards of it, I don't think I got time,” Grease replied. He winced as he rotated his shoulder.

“I'll help,” Lucky told him.

“As will I,” Cheddarwright chimed in.

“I know how to dress a wound or two, myself,” Grand chimed in, tapping the scar that wrapped around the back of his head.

“Fine, just, be quick,” Grease muttered. He wasn't used to accepting help, but then again, he wasn't used to this body, either. The deeper-than-bone pain of the I-soldier surgery should have left him bed-ridden for weeks, but he trudged on, aided by Pietrzak's drugs. He shrugged out of his massive jacket and trousers, then sat down on the table's edge and let the officials get to work.

A silver-edged stiletto appeared in Cheddarwright's hand, and she sliced through the gray-caked gauze on Grease's thigh-sized forearm, then passed the blade to Lucky. The green bandage separated clean under her knife's honed edge, and the gauze unraveled into soiled coils on the cracked stone floor. An anti-septic odor rose from Grease's stapled skin, that chemical-clean smell of a hospital. Doc P. had done as he promised: infection had not set in any of the criss-crossing incisions that left Grease's body looking like a railroad switch yard. The last bandages peeled away, and, finally uncovered, Grease grated against the rasp of raw air on fresh wounds, but did not complain.

He set his jaw solid and remained silent as he slathered an entire jar of thick cream over his hulking body. The Romanian's incisions were already smooth and pinking; he was healing quickly. Still, he spackled over everything. Grease winced a few times when he encountered tender areas, but he was meticulous and covered every inch he could. When his hands couldn't reach past his shoulders, Cheddarwright took the salve from him.

“I can do this,” she assured him, flipping her braid out of the way over her shoulder. She applied the paste-like goop to the pink lines and stainless staples that ran across his broad shoulders and down his reinforced spine, over the unyielding steel plates that pushed unnatural corners out of the curves of his body.

“Thanks,” Grease mumbled, stumbling over the word as if he didn't know if it was the right thing to say. Cheddarwright only smiled. There was nothing else he needed to say.

“You got a real tapestry on you, mate,” Grand told him.

“What?” Grease asked.

“Your scars, a fair impressive set,” Grand replied. He ran a finger down the big scar that bisected the back off his head and ran across the base of his skull. “You might have me beat.”

“I should say so,” Cheddarwright interjected, hushing Grand. The former pilot just grinned, eliciting one in return from Grease.

The three of them bandaged Grease back up in silence. Grand was true to his word and could wrap gauze like a nurse. Separate weaves went around Grease's fingers, his steel-banded hands and spiked knuckles, and eventually they covered him from ankle to forehead in sterile olive drab wraps.

Grease slipped his pants and coat back on and took his huge pack off the floor. Its thick straps creaked under the weight, but they held strong.

Bastedo had been smoking a cigarette throughout the whole process. He snubbed it out on the flypaper strip on his forearm and squatted next to Grease, examining his steel prosthetic.

“The chief gave you a cleaning kit, yes?” he asked. He put his hand out expectantly. Grease fumbled through his pack until he found it. He hesitated for a second, but placed it in Bastedo's persistently hovering hand.

“Do not move,” the Frenchman grunted. He dropped onto his rear and unrolled the kit on the rough floor, picking through the array of instruments until he found a stiff wire brush. He studied for the leg's piston system for a moment, then told Grease: “This is much like a Brough's suspension.”

He began scrubbing ash out of the prosthesis' joints and mechanisms, making a small pile on the floor. He blew one last puff out of the artificial leg.

“A what's suspension?” Grease whispered to Lucky. He shrugged, but Grand knew.

“A Brough Superior, his motor bike,” he explained.

“I have three,” Bastedo grunted from his haunches.

“Yeah, yeah,” Grand muttered, jealous.

Bastedo tightened two bolts with an Allen wrench, then applied a few golden drops of lubricating oil to the main piston that supported Grease's lumbering mass as he walked. Bastedo tucked the tools back into the kit and rolled it up, then held an empty hand out again. Once Grease hauled him to his feet, he said: “Try now.”

Grease took a tentative step, leaning heavily on the freshly-cleaned peg. He shifted his weight and took a few cautious steps before strutting around like a rooster.

“Wow,” he said. “This thing is the cat's pyjamas, now. Like it knows what I need it to do.”

“Loosen here, tighten there. Every machine is different, but they all will tell you what they need,” Bastedo said. He tossed the cleaning kit back to Grease, then pulled his cigarette case out of his pocket, saying over his shoulder: “Is better than a foot, yes?”

“Might be,” Grease said, grinning. “Plus it cuts my sock budget in half.”

Bastedo snorted and struck a match on his papered forearm. He held the flame to his cigarette and pulled hard for a long drag. He watched the glowing cherry inch toward his lips before finally removing it from his lips. Cheap, oily tobacco smoke tumbled out of his open mouth.

Goldbrick re-attached the freshly-cleaned double barrels to his sawed-off shotgun and ground out his cigar on his blackened boot sole.

“Rack 'em, it's time to go,” he grunted. Lucky checked that his Garand, Colt 1911, and Benjamin's De Lisle had rounds chambered. “Bastedo, Miller, and Grease, you're my bulletproof men, I want you and that Randall on point. We are too close to be seen. If we are, sneaking is over. You blow up whatever is in our way and we hoof it from there. Grease, if we need the thunder, I better hear that cannon roaring.”

“Absolutely, sir,” Grease said. He was eager to put some more lead down range. Firing that punt gun made him feel like he was like Zeus throwing lightning.

“If we had time, we could do this right,” Goldbrick said. “But we don't.”

“For all we know, they've evacuated the targets already. Between the Bartkäuze, the ninjas, and Ivan's shells, I'd be surprised if the head honchos weren't in Norway by now,” Grand said.

“It is unlikely any German aircraft could navigate these volcanic conditions,” Miller offered. “The sparteführers will not have gotten far if escape is their goal.”

“It took Bucket, what, ten hours to come up with a fix to keep our birds flying?” Goldbrick fired back. “You better believe the krauts have something, too.”

“So why would they stay here for us to kill?” Bastedo asked.

“Because they're a bunch of assholes, that's why,” Grease replied. “Thinking they're invincible, that they're above the rest of us, above what's right.”

“If that is the case, they have learned nothing from the Seven Counts,” Miller said. “They waited in their castle, thinking themselves untouchable, until it was proven that they were not.”

“Those jokers are in there, waiting out the Ruskie shells, sipping on whatever krauts drink, sending the help to bump us off,” Goldbrick said. “They're still here, mark my words, waiting and watching and having a grand old time. But do not underestimate our enemy, officials. Just because a fighter is big doesn't mean he's slow, just because he's a blowhard doesn't make him sloppy, if he's mean, that don't make him stupid.”

The officials all nodded. They knew their enemy.

“Our best chance is to bash 'em right in the nose, now,” Goldbrick continued. “We might not come back, but whatever we do, a lot of them won't either. And this damn base, built on thousands of deaths, filled with weapons so nasty that they break the rules of something as insane as God-damned war, and housing the worst killers in history, we are going to make it gone. If we can't get the head of the snake, we're going to make damn sure the body is gone. It might still be poisonous, but I ain't never seen a head slithering around by itself.”

“Thunder Crash Slam,” John Graves whispered to himself.

“What?” Lucky asked.

“Fly-boy malarkey,” Cheddarwright answered.

Grease cracked open his punt gun and swapped a yellow beehive round into the chamber. He hinged it shut and threw the enormous shotgun over his shoulder, asking:

“You boys ready to move?”

Cheddarwright snorted, and he corrected himself:

“Officials, let’s move.”

Bastedo took the point, moving out of the demolished town and into the rough. He paused often, taking cover behind a trunk or in a cut to scan the area ahead for targets. Miller stayed a few paces behind him, covering him each time he stopped. Grease held back a couple dozen yards. He knew he was too big to hide, so he kept himself in strategic reserve. When things got loud, he could be right there matching the din.

Choked woods streamed by again, swallowing time and distance once more. The rare sunbeam dappled threatening shadows through the canopy, and gray dust devils drew Lucky's aim every time they kicked up. The ashfall had abated some time ago, Lucky hadn't realize when, and his view through the woods was unobstructed. Somehow, with only yards visible around him, he had felt safer. It meant he knew what absolutely everything that could see him was.

Now, with visibility wide open, he was scared. In the deep German woods, coated with cinders and prepared for years to repel invaders, everything Lucky saw could have been a lie, a trap, an enemy in wait.

When Bastedo's fist went up, the line halted on a dime. Lucky tucked in behind a wide oak and peered ahead, Garand ready. Bastedo was doing the same, surveying something over the top of a fallen trunk through his Randall's sights. Cheddarwright appeared beside Lucky.

“See anything?” she asked. He studied the gray forest ahead, searching for what had spooked the frog. She whispered again: “I don't hear a thing. Not even animals.”

“They're long gone,” Lucky told her. He remembered the blind sharks, the poisoned deer, and the ravenous gremlins from Spain and shuddered. “You wouldn't want to meet the animals who'd stay, believe me.”

“Quiet,” she said, shushing him. Lucky held his tongue and focused on the vast dry woods.

A small pop echoed between a trees at the same time a puff of yellow erupted from Bastedo's forehead. His neck snapped back, dropping him off the log, limp, red pouring over his face. He slid into the ash, silent and boneless.

“Sniper!” Goldbrick roared from somewhere behind Lucky.

“I have him!” Cheddarwright shouted back. She nocked a barbed arrow in her bowstring, then threw her hood up and dashed around the tree, skidding to a halt behind another thick oak. Her game warden cloak blended in like she was a bush herself, and after a few seconds' stillness, Lucky lost sight of her completely.

“Kept your heads down!” Goldbrick yelled again. Another pop bounced around the forest, a suppressed rifle's muted bark, and a bullet snapped past Lucky. Splinters blasted out of the trunk the general was ducking behind. The kraut had a bead on him.

“One shooter, elevated posi- !” Miller took a round as he called out, sending him sprawling. Cold mist jetted out of his chest. He laid flat on his back, struggled to plug the bullet hole.

That was too much for Grease.

“I ain't waiting!” he shouted down the line. He picked himself out of the dirt and charged toward Miller's position. A bullet pinged off his chest armor, and another scored a bright silver scar across his steel banding over his nose. He swatted at his face like the bullet had been a gnat.

“Hey!” he shouted, “I can do that, too!”

Grease lifted his punt gun and pulled the trigger. One-and-a-half thousand BB's exploded from its barrel, shredding trees in a cone that reached out to fifty yards. Branches, needles, leaves, and ash cascaded down, a green and gray avalanche that obscured Grease for a precious few more seconds until he reached Miller. The big man snatched up Miller by his collar and dragged him into a root hollow, out of the line of fire.

The punt gun popped open and Grease pulled the smoking yellow shell out and popped in a green one.

“How about this?” he called out. He popped up and fired again. Thirty yards out an ancient birch exploded as if struck by lightning. It took the lead slug full-on, splitting down the middle and shattering into jagged chunks the size of horses. Grease was on the move as it showered down, relocating to help Bastedo.

He sprinted into a baseball slide, skidding over roots and gnarls until he was kneeling over the Frenchman's bloody body to cover it with his own. Another bullet bounced off his wide back, skipping across a steel plate with a sickening reverberation.

“Any time now!” Grease shouted. A fourth round found its mark, hitting flesh. Grease grunted and almost fell, but he held, still covering Bastedo. He struggled to load another massive shell into his punt gun, but he fumbled it. Lucky raised his Garand and risked a peek around the tree, only to catch a faceful of flying bark. The sniper knew where he was, too.

A bowstring twanged once, then again a second later. A hundred yards out, a branch snapped and a body dropped twenty feet to the dirt, silent and lifeless.

A mound of gray vegetation shifted and stood to Lucky's right. Cheddarwright threw off her hood and lowered her longbow.

“Clear!” she reported.

“Help!” Grease shouted, “Help!”

Goldbrick popped out of cover and rushed past, Grand on his heels.

“You two, get Miller on his feet!” he ordered.

Miller gasped from the ground waving his arms frantically. Goldbrick dove behind another tree, Thompson ready. Miller wheezed; he couldn't seem to catch his breath. Instead, he held up two fingers.

“I know, we're clear,” Cheddarwright she told him, loud enough for the general to hear. Goldbrick didn't say a word, he just got up and dashed to Grease and Bastedo.

Cheddarwright's assurance calmed Miller down. His desperate breaths slowed. Ash streamed off her cloak as she ran to his side. Lucky met her there.

“What's wrong with him?” Lucky asked. Cheddarwright hauled Miller to his feet. Rushes of cold air were escaping out of the bullet hole dead-center in his chest. His mouth was moving beneath his mask, but only harsh wheezes were coming out.

“Bullet must have collapsed one of his lungs,” she answered.

“I'll tape him up,” Lucky said, not knowing what else to do. He snatched the hurricane tape off Miller’s webbing.

“Hold your horses,” she replied. Miller waved them off and dug two gloved fingers into his perforated chest. Flesh and organs squelched. Lucky nearly gagged, He finally retrieved the flattened round and handed it to her. She told Lucky: “Seal it now.”

He ripped a square off the roll with his teeth and stuck it over the bullet hole, sealing up the icy leak instantly.

“Standard seven-nine-two millimeter rifle round,” she determined. She threw the mashed lead away over her shoulder.

“What were you expecting?” Lucky asked.

“Curare, radio transmitters, delayed explosive charges, white phosphorus, hydrochloric acid,” she listed.

“Fair enough,” Lucky said.

“Which means Private Benolli is as safe as anyone could be with a bullet inside them,” Miller concluded. He took a deep breath and patted the patch on his chest. His lung had already sealed itself up and re-inflated. He stretched, adding: “Exquisite bowmanship as always, Official Cheddarwright. And exquisite tapesmanship, Lucky.”

“Thank you. There's the dead one,” she said, pointing at the fallen man with her bow, “And up there, that's the other dead one.”

“Two shooters?” Lucky asked. He hadn't been able to spot the first one, and she'd plugged a pair.

Fifteen feet up a gnarled oak, a second Nazi was perched in his sniper nest. A ragged blanket covered his body, and he’d tucked old leaves into his hat to perfect his camo. Red dripped off his boots. Cheddarwright's arrow had flown true, punching right through his rifle scope and head to pin him to the tree.

“Let us see if there is anything we can do for Official Bastedo,” Miller said. A lead weight crashed into the bottom of Lucky’s gut. He’d seen the bullet hit Bastedo in the face. The four of them rushed over to where the general was kneeling over the limp Frenchman.

Goldbrick had rolled Bastedo onto his back. He'd tried to wipe blood away, but it kept coming.

“There's too much,” the general grunted when Miller, Lucky, and Cheddarwright arrived. “Good to see you up, Snowman. I need some water.”

“Of course, General Stephens,” Miller said. He popped the tin canteen off his belt and washed away gray and crimson clumps from the general’s hands. Satisfied he was clean enough, Goldbrick went back to work on Bastedo. He probed the Frenchman's face with his fingers, blindly searching under the slick of fresh blood coating Bastedo’s face.

“No entry wound,” he said carefully. He ran his hands over Bastedo's forehead and cheeks again before he was sure. He slumped back and smiled in gold, then said: “Well damn.”

“Is he...” Grease tried to ask, horrified. He dropped down to his haunches.

“The damn slap armor worked, again,” the general explained. He held his hands out and Miller poured water over them again. “He's out cold, and his nose ain't ever going to be right, but he's alive. Hand me the salts, Miller. The pair of you, see if Grand needs a hand with the big guy.”

Grand had already finished patching up Grease. The sniper's bullet had pierced his skin just below his shoulder blade and dug into a thick slab of transplanted muscle. He'd bled hard, and his new bandages were stained red to the waist, but he was in good spirits.

“Lucky!” Grease hooted. “Did you see that tree explode! Holy shit!”

Lucky couldn't help but grin with him.

“Branches and leaves flying everywhere! It was so loud! Like the entire Fourth of July came out of this thing! I love this damn gun!”

“Are you injured, Private Benolli?” Miller asked.

“What, this?” Grease asked, hamming it up. “Just a scratch! Nothing Five Grand's bandaging can’t… wait, why do they call you that?”

“I shot down five Messerschmidts in one sortie,” Grand replied, dancing around as he tried to tape down the gauze over Grease’s wound as the big man gesticulated.

“Five? That's impressive, but did you see that tree?” Grease yammered.

“Grease, do you need to rest?” Cheddarwright asked him.

“Rest? I got Grand's bandaging and Doc P.'s painkillers, so 'hell no' to resting, let's shoot some more stuff!”

“The round just hit meat,” Grand explained. “It would hurt like the bollocks if not for the numbing cream Pietrzak packed for him. This is all we can do 'til we get him to a doctor. He'll be fine for the mission, I think.”

“I feel like a million bucks,” Grease assured everyone.

“Good, because you look like a sou that was run over by a train,” Bastedo chipped in. He was leaning heavily on the general, but still standing.

“Look who's talking,” Grease said, smiling nonetheless.

The sniper's bullet had collided with Bastedo's forehead, dead-on. The slap armor mask he'd stuck over his face had burst and dissipated most of its force outward. But there was still enough of a hit left over to shatter his nose. It was practically flattened, a mushy yellow and purple lump held onto his face by medical tape and gauze. Swollen shiners had already formed under his eyes, and crusty smears of blood striped his face and beard. He was hurting, but he had been shot in the damn face and he was alive, which gave him the right to be a little cocky.

“Why are we standing here?” Bastedo huffed. “The Germans would have heard that exchange. They will be coming for us.”

“He's right,” Goldbrick said. “Let's move.”

“I still have point,” Bastedo said.

“Like hell you - !” Grease started, but Bastedo cut him off. The leathery Frenchman stared him down and pulled a fresh slap armor mask out of his pack. He peeled the backing off, then jammed it down over his battered face, only allowing a muted grunt of pain to escape his lips. Grease relented:

“He can have point.”

“Right then, now move, people,” Goldbrick ordered. Cheddarwright tugged the arrow out of the fallen sniper and wiped his blood on his shirt before slipping it back into her quiver. She left the second shaft were it was. It would take the krauts a while to find their comrade hidden in the tree, nailed onto the trunk.

The seven of them took off at a run, their staggered line just half-a-mile from Eberkopf's perimeter.

WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY 14, 1943
THE SOUTHERN PERIMETER OF EBERKOPF
BADEN-ELSAß, NAZI GERMANY

The thin, cratered woods came to an abrupt end, opening up into a dead zone of clear-cut stumps.

“God damn,” Grease said for everyone. A concrete wall rose before them, thirty feet tall and extending as far west and east as they could see. Between them and it was two hundred yards of dead ground, shell-churned and gray.

“There,” Cheddarwright said. Lucky followed her gaze. A few hundred yards away, one of the Russian mortar shells had struck the wall dead-on, leaving a gap wide enough to fly The Express through.

“That's our door,” Goldbrick agreed. They circled wide around the dead zone, careful to remain behind the tree line. The wall looked unmanned, but they wouldn’t risk getting caught in the open.

The general crouched behind a tree and studied the top of the wall through his Thompson's sights.

“Grand, you're up,” he grunted around his cigar.

“Yes, sir,” Grand replied. He threw his SMLE around his back and pulled a small canister off his belt. It wasn't any larger than a beer can and had air holes punched into it.

“Grease, cover the gap with your belt-gun, Lucky and Cheddar, watch the wall. 'Stedo, I want rockets on whatever they start shooting at.”

“Yes, sir,” they all replied. They took cover behind a knot of oaks. Lucky held his Garand at the ready, but kept the De Lisle and Colt close; reloading during a firefight is for chumps.

“Let her out, Grand,” Goldbrick ordered.

Grand unscrewed the top of the canister and tipped it gently. A fat white rat tumbled out. She sniffed the air with excitement.

“Go, Snowflake,” Grand urged. The rat squeaked once, then skittered into the dead zone. She made it out ten yards, crawling over stumps and craters before she found something she liked. She squeaked loud enough for the rest of them to hear, and Grand gingerly approached. He slid a small, lemon-yellow stake into the dirt and pinched the corner off a block of cheese for her. Snowflake nibbled it up then moved on, getting another ten long yards yards before squeaking again. Grand dutifully placed another yellow stake, gave her some cheese, then followed again.

“What is he doing?” Lucky asked Cheddarwright. Her taut bowstring never wavered as she answered.

“Snowflake is a munitions-detection rat,” she answered. “She can smell explosive ordnance.”

“So each stake is a land mine,” Lucky realized.

“Brilliant, Ford, really,” Cheddarwright replied, rolling her eyes. Grease nearly stifled a chuckle.

It took another fifteen minutes for Snowflake and Grand to reach the wall. When they did, Grand scooped her up and placed her back in the canister with the rest of the cheese to keep her company. A dozen yellow stakes trailed behind them.

“Bastedo, Grease, you first, we’ll be right behind you,” Goldbrick ordered. On his word, the pair picked through the loose ground, giving Grand's stakes a healthy berth. They crossed without incident and posted up against the wall. They peered around its crumbled edges.

“All clear!” Bastedo reported.

“Move out,” Goldbrick said. Lucky kept his finger on the trigger and followed in the general's boot prints, with Miller and Cheddarwright stepping into his. Miller picked up the yellow stakes as he passed them.

The mortar-shattered wall loomed over them. It was featureless and solid, a giant snaking structure poured as a single, unbroken block. Still, it had been broken. Lucky stepped into the broken, scorched gap. The break was twenty feet wide at the ground, three times as wide at the top. Cracks as thick as his arms snaked away from it, and fractured crags, each hundreds of pounds, had been thrown dozens of yards. The Russians had to have landed a direct mortar hit; anything else would have been as good as wind.

Gray-filtered sunlight streamed through the gap, drawing Lucky through. Beyond it, a sea of grass was laid out before him. Emerald blades waved and flowed in the volcanic wind, spearing up resilient through a thin blanket of ash.

“No bandits in sight, sir,” Grand told the general.

“No entry points, either,” Goldbrick grumbled. “Not even a damn air duct.”

A wide field stretched as far as Lucky could see, gray disappearing into gray. The wall curved gently and melted into a dark line to his left and right. Beyond grass and wall and ashen sky, Eberkopf was nothing.

“It is all underground, officials,” Goldbrick said. He was reminding them but assuring himself.

“Analysis of the construction materials indicates that the roof of the facility would be about ten meters thick,” Miller said. The general snorted.

“Which means we got to hope that the Nazis built us a door themselves,” he said.

“What we did build was a network of acoustic detection devices, General Stephens,” a voice called through a megaphone. Lucky spun on his heel, rifle at his shoulder.

“Easy, Ford,” Goldbrick said through a clenched jaw.

An entire company of SS soldiers had formed up in the treeline behind them. Their uniforms were pitch black struck with gray lightning, as were their helmets. They each wore a gas mask stenciled over with the silhouette of a swooping owl, save the officer with the megaphone. He barked an order. Dozens of machine guns, rifles, and machine pistols, all outfitted with massive blacklight scopes, settled their sights on the officials.

“Bartkäuze,” Cheddarwright grated. These were the Nazis that had attacked the other squad, the ones that had killed Corbyn Farisi.

“And that makes you Rochus Skorzeny,” Goldbrick called out. The Nazi with the megaphone smiled. He was young for an officer, but looked like he carried an extra decade in the bags under his beady eyes. A Charlie Chaplin mustache sat atop a sneer. Below, his lower lip and chin were waxy and lumpy, like they had tried to melt right off of his face. Lucky recognized chemical burns when he saw them. Above all, Skorzeny was pale, like he never saw sunlight, but weathered, as if he hadn't slept in a proper bed in years.

“Your intelligence is as good as ours, Herr General,” Skorzeny replied. “I see you have heard of der Eule.”

“Der what? No, I just see the family resemblance,” Goldbrick called back. “You look just like your big brother, though he's a bit prettier.”

That put some color in the kraut's cheeks.

“Come on over here, kid, I'll give you some more scars to match Otto. Come on, you and an old man,” Goldbrick across the minefield. He threw some mock punches in the air, but Skorzeny took a breath.

“I believe Mistress Yūrei would be disappointed if I beat you into the dirt and she were not here to watch,” Skorzeny said after a pause. The pink drained from his pale cheeks. He smiled, showing off a rack of thin, eroded teeth.

“Damn, little brothers are usually easy to rile up,” Goldbrick muttered. He whispered over his shoulder. “On three, I want all our ordnance going off at once. Make these goons scared to come through this gap.”

The officials all nodded. Lucky flexed his free hand, ready to snatch a pair of grenades off his webbing. Miller quietly unsnapped the flap off his grenade bag. He was out of flashfog, but spinnennetz and drum bombs would shake up the scene. They might buy themselves time to escape into the empty aurochs field.

“The field is no escape,” Skorzeny called out, reading the general's mind.

A loud throbbing filled the air, sending the officials spinning around. Two vehicles emerged from the bare ground a hundred yards away and rose into the air, kicking up gray dust devils. They took their place hovering above the officials, higher than the top of the wall.

“I have not read any reports regarding these weapons, General Stephens,” Miller shouted over the din before anyone could ask.

The things were the size of Jeeps, open-canopied metal skeletons manned by a pair of goggled aviators. Instead of wheels, four thrumming turbines growled and held them aloft. Hot air shot downward out of them, and Lucky could see propellers whirling inside. One man worked the controls, while the other handled the weapons, raking the sights of ventral-mounted dual machine guns over the officials.

“What are those?” Grease demanded.

“New,” Bastedo replied. His jaw was clenched; he'd never seen anything like them, either.

Lucky backed away from the flying machines and their mounted guns in instinct, but bumped into Cheddarwright. She had done the same, though in the opposite direction. The advancing line of Bartkäuze were somehow picking their way around the unmarked land mines.

Thee officials were pinned in the gap with nowhere to run.

“Here's the plan, folks,” Goldbrick growled: “On three, throw your grenades and hoof it into the grass. 'Stedo, Grease, I want those jalopies out of the air by the time we're moving.”

“You got it,” Grease acknowledged. A supersonic wall of buckshot a few hundred strong would be more than enough to shred the sputtering flying cars.

“Lay down your weapons, officials,” Skorzeny called out. “No harm will come to you.”

“You think I'm new?” Goldbrick shouted back. He hissed to his people : “One.”

“Indeed not. I am sorry I lied,” Skorzeny replied. He twirled a Luger on his finger while he spoke. “Truly, I mean only to injure, never to insult.”

“I appreciate that,” Goldbrick called back. “Hurt feelings make surrender negotiations so uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I feel negotiations are an unnecessary formality in this case,” the Nazi replied. He took a long step over a landmine, seeing it by some hidden sign. His phalanx of commandos kept pace behind him, unconcerned by the explosives.

“Two,” Stephens whispered. He eased back both hammers on his sawed-off. Bastedo bit the pep pills off the stock of his rifle and crunched them between his molars before swallowing the mash. Cheddarwright drew her bowstring back.

“General Stephens...” Miller started, but Goldbrick interrupted.

“Steady, Snowman,” the general grated.

“Sir, look,” Grand said.

Lucky turned around along with the general.

“Ah, hell,” Goldbrick sighed. “We could still take them. Probably.”

The surviving pair of trench sharks were waiting beneath the hovering vehicles. Translucent slime dripped from their razor-steel jaws. They were so close Lucky could smell the salt on their breath. They looked battered from the battle earlier, which made them all the more dangerous. A half-dozen smaller sharks threshed in and out between their older siblings' legs. These were no larger than dogs and had yet to be fitted with metal teeth or armor, but Lucky was sure they'd shred him nonetheless.

“We could,” Grease confirmed. He pointed up and said: “But not them.”

The broken wall above them was peppered with silent, waiting Waldgeister. They were sticking to the bare, vertical concrete like frogs, waiting with their hands on their sword hilts. Yūrei stood atop the wall, staring down through her blood-stained mask's empty eyes. She threw Benjamin's stiletto in the air and caught its point between her fingers.

“Lower your weapons, general,” Skorzeny called out. He and his men were close enough that he no longer needed the megaphone. “The mistress is now present, so I need not hesitate to kill any of you.”

A thin blade brushed Lucky's throat. A Waldgeist had dropped down silently behind him. She clung to him like a shadow and settled her knife on his neck. Lucky tried not to jump. He couldn't risk turning his head, but in his peripheral vision he could see that all the other officials were in similar straits.

“Stay calm, don't do nothin' stupid,” Goldbrick ordered. “Barrels at the ground, officials.”

No one objected. They all knew the general was already coming up with a new plan, they just had to buy him time.

“You know General Stephens, I am familiar with many of these faces. You, I can kill. Perhaps the sharks are hungry,” Skorzeny said. He and his men had reached the broken wall. His Bartkauze stayed back, but he began pacing between the wary officials. Lucky could smell his sour breath when he walked past, like rotten meat. He studied the officials' faces one-by-one, recognizing each of them:

“Bailey Cheddarwright, I would keep you for the Führer. He would be amused to see the Reich's archers best a prolific Anglo athlete, over and over,” Skorzeny chuckled with a sneer. He began pointing at each official. “You, I-soldier, I do not know you. But we could reprogram you; Zwanzig needs a new Brother. Young man, Lloyd Ford isn’t it? You have someone waiting on you, as well. John Grand, Sparteführer Adler will has promised a bottle of schnapps to whosoever removes your head. I shall store it next to Benjamin's and Farisi's for him.”

He stopped in place, pointed at Bastedo and sighed.

“And Rafael Bastedo,” he said, feigning exasperation, “How does a simple policeman expect to survive something this far beyond his scope?”

Bastedo didn't answer. Instead, he stared at Goldbrick's back, waiting for some order to act. Veins were bulging in his neck and sweat was beading on his red face before rolling over the slap armor mask and the purpled skin beneath.

“In fact, such a man must not expect to survive,” Skorzeny laughed, spilling drool over his scarred lips. He wiped it on the back of a damp sleeve before calling to the hovering vehicles: “Kolibris! Auf meinen Befehl, sie töten die blutigen Franzose.”

The Waldgeist grabbed Lucky's collar and turned him around. Bastedo’s captor shoved him at the hovering machines. He recovered his balance and tried to bring his sneeze gun up. He was not fast enough.

The two flying cars opened up with a burst before he could get a rocket off. MG 42 bullets slammed into him, bursting against his chest in yellow puffs.

Bastedo fell, yellow dust whirling around him.

Lucky wanted to scream, but the blade pressed against his neck locked him in place. If he hadn’t seen these women swat bullets out of the air, he might’ve thought he was fast enough to snatch his own knife and get free.

Bastedo groaned and rolled on the ground. Lucky saw only yellow staining the ground around him, no red. His slap armor had deflected every shot, but the bullets still hit with the force of a baseball bat. His broken nose re-opened, and red started to stream down his face and onto his shirt. He laid still for a second, then got his arms underneath himself and pushed himself back to his feet, dragging his M13 from the ground.

“Il faudra plus - !” he yelled, but the machine guns screamed louder. The barrage tore through Bastedo's chest, his already-expended slap armor rendered useless. He collapsed to the ground, pouring blood from a dozen wounds drilled through his torso.

Rafael Bastedo stared upward, ash sticking to his open eyes.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres.