The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden, Part 9 of 12

Lucky Ford and the officials have been captured! Taken into the depths of Mount Vesuvius, they are now confronted with the horrors crafted by Department Three and its inhuman mastermind, Doktor Metzger.

The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden is now available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, or as a DRM-free ePub!

This Part 9 of The Secret Files of Lucky Ford: The Dragon, the Wolf, and the Maiden. If you aren’t caught up yet, check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8 before reading any further.

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

SATURDAY NIGHT, JULY 10, 1942
SS DEPARTMENT THREE BASE: VESUVIUS
OUTSIDE THE CITY OF NAPLES, ITALY

The old man was Doctor Johann Metzger, the scientist responsible for creating the Vargulf Korps, the gremlins, the Crying Maiden, and other horrors Lucky had yet to learn of.

Lucky was leaning as far from the butcher as his restraints allowed. Metzger made his way down the row, examining each of the officials with his frantically scribbling assistant in tow. When he got to Dutton, fourth down the line, the official whispered something to him in German.

“Was ist es?” Metzger asked him. Dutton mumbled again, still too quiet for the old man. Metzger leaned in to hear him and Dutton reared his head back as far as it could go then surged forward, ready to cream Metzger with a bone-shattering soccer-hooligan headbutt.

Before he could make contact with the old man's face, Metzger’s assistant yanked him out of the way. The SS man swung his metal clipboard into Dutton's face with a horrible crunch. Dutton bounced back his chair, groaning and sputtering as red leaked off of his chin.

“You son of a bitch!” Bucket yelled.

The SS man quickly apologized to the annoyed doctor in German, smoothing out the grab-induced wrinkles in the old man's jacket. He then turned to the officials, smiling.

“It looks like we've found our first volunteer,” he taunted. He spoke English with a Philly accent, unmistakable to Lucky after spending weeks training with Burton.

“You're American!” Lucky yelled. “What are you doing?”

The officer finished scribbling on his bloody clipboard before responding.

“I am fighting for my homeland, same as you,” he answered, smiling at Lucky like a tour guide. “Werner von Werner, a pleasure to meet you all, really. You guys are famous around here. The doctor’s excited, too, trust me. Don't worry about him, he’s not used to having guests around here.”

Werner patted the old doctor on the back and said something quietly in German. The little man grunted and returned to examining his captives. Lucky looked back and forth between the two men, confused and enraged.

“Are you kidding me? Are you seeing any of this?”

“Pal, I have seen the world for what it is: a rich and beautiful place being wasted by the inferior people squatting on it. I am determined to do whatever it takes to secure the future of this world for my children,” Werner said. He realized Metzger had continued his examinations of the officials without him and he hustled to jot down everything the old man had muttered.

“We have a dossier on you, Mister von Werner, we know you do not have any children,” Miller told him.

“Yes, yes, you better believe we have one on you, too, Mister Miller,” Werner replied absently.

The doctor paused as he examined Miller, obviously taken aback by the bound man's gas mask still secured on his face. Werner quickly stepped forward and whispered in German into the old man's ear. The little doctor's eyes lit up with excitement, wild gray eyebrows rising in giddiness behind his thick glasses.

“The doctor has heard all about you, as well,” Werner explained. “He is very excited to examine you. You'll have to wait for last, I'm afraid, he is going to take his time determining what makes you tick, to find your... hmm, your…”

“My limits, he said. You must know I speak German, I understand him perfectly well,” Miller huffed through his mask. Metzger rubbed his knobby hands together like a housefly, already concocting horrible procedures to perform on him.

When the wizened doctor reached the Colonel, he took pause. He grunted and held his hand out to Werner. The young traitor flipped through his stack of papers before finally taking out a short file and handing it to the doctor. Metzger licked his fingers and began thumbing through the pages.

“The doctor remembers you, Colonel Halistone. You got no idea how many times I've heard him curse your name,” Werner said.

“Doktor Metzger, we tried our best for you,” the Colonel said. Werner slapped him straight across the face.

“You think some half-assed apology makes up for your stunt? You know what happened after, right? You tried to kidnap his wife and children and they all wound up dead. You’re lucky he’s a scientist and not a sadist, buddy, ‘cause this could’ve gotten real ugly.”

“It was a rescue operation,” Miller said. “To get him and his family away from Department Three.”

“Do you know how sad it is seeing an old man cry? You messed around and his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law paid the price,” Werner snapped. “Shit, maybe I’ll convince him that revenge is better than results. You know, in select cases.”

“Does he know it was German bullets that killed Cartula?”

Metzger froze in place at the name.

“A terrible accident. You put her in that crossfire, Colonel,” Werner said. “We’d’ve kept her fat and happy, cooking pies or whatever old ladies do, if you’d never come along.”

Werner whispered in the old doctor’s ear. Metzger grunted back, and handed back the file, moving on to MacLeod. Werner took some hasty notes and leaned forward to whisper to the Colonel:

“It sounds like he has his mind made up about you. The doctor doesn’t pick up a scalpel himself too much these days, but he’ll make an exception for you.”

Metzger quickly looked over MacLeod and moved on to Lucky, but something caught his eye and he dropped to one knee at the Scotsman's side.

“Meine kleine Taube,” Metzger whispered. He grunted, holding out his hand. Werner carefully removed a scalpel from his coat pocket and handed it to him.

With sudden steadiness and practiced precision, Metzger sliced open MacLeod's bloody sleeve, exposing all of the thick black stitches holding his forearm shut.

Metzger's blade skipped from thread to thread, a paint brush in his hands, opening the old wound to the stale air. Lucky could hear MacLeod's teeth grind as he held back a shout. Metzger sliced into MacLeod's flesh and the laceration bloomed wide, blood welling and overflowing onto the arm-rest and seat.

The doctor held the scalpel out behind him and Werner compulsorily replaced it with a set of long tweezers. Metzger drove the tweezers into MacLeod's arm, fishing around. A low growl began rumbling through the Scotsman's massive chest, turning his face red and forcing a throbbing vein to sprout on his forehead.

After a tense moment of digging, the tweezers emerged gripping a blood-stained hunk of metal. It was the shrapnel that had pierced MacLeod's arm in a previous mission. Using a pen, Metzger lightly poked the object, which now looked suspiciously symmetrical for shrapnel. He handed it to Werner, then, with the thread and fish-hook-shaped needle Werner’d replaced it with, stitched MacLeod's arm shut again, babbling in German all the while to the restrained Scot.

“The doktor would like to thank you for being the first successful field trial for the Fragmentierungspion,” Werner translated. “With this little device we were able to listen in to every one of your briefings and meetings. I'm glad it implanted it in someone so well connected. Normally I couldn’t tell you about any of this, but you boys aren’t leaving this mountain. I could tell you what color Hitler’s underpants are, and they not the color you think.”

Werner placed the shrapnel-launched recording device into a small paper bag and slid it into his pocket.

“You know why you survived Othonoi, pal?” he asked the seething Scot. “That little hunk of wire and metal is why. You powered it just by keeping your blood pumping. You carried it around so we could listen everywhere you went. You think the Vargulf slaughtered every official from Prague to Basra to Algeria and then forgot to eat the last one?”

MacLeod was holding still as best he could. Between Werner's taunts and the pain of un-planned, spontaneous surgery, he was quaking. Metzger tied off MacLeod's last suture and cut the end with his scalpel.

MacLeod let out a long, shaking breath, drew another in, then exhaled slowly, calming himself with practiced technique.

Using the Scotsman's knee for support, Metzger pushed himself up from the floor and brushed the dust from his slacks.

Werner leaned in and whispered to MacLeod:

“You're been really helpful. Perhaps I can convince the doctor to sell you instead of killing you now. You'd still die, but you would get a few more days, at least.”

“Do nae do me any favors, ye wee shite,” MacLeod muttered, keeping his eyes shut and his breathing rhythmic.

Metzger adjusted his glasses then moved down the line to Lucky. Werner stopped him and whispered in quick German. Metzger grunted a response, annoyed, then shook his head, waving a hand at Lucky in frustration, then walked back through the door into the operating room where he began scrubbing his hands down in a deep sink.

“Doctor Metzger is, uh, frustrated, yeah, that Gerhardt has claimed you. He thinks you’d be a perfectly good test subject. It’ll be a shame to watch those maniacs tear you to shreds, or whatever he has planned,” Werner told Lucky. He made a little note on his clipboard, then walked to the entrance hatch and cranked it open.

The door swung inward to reveal Gerhardt waiting patiently. The panzerritter guard flanked the door behind him, bulletproof and single-minded.

“Thank you, Untersturmführer von Werner, I wouldn't want to miss this,” Gerhardt said, his cruel grin warping around his scar. He casually strode down the row of prisoners to take the empty seat next to Lucky. He leaned over and whispered in his ear:

“I was there the last time you had to watch all your friends die, Herr Ford. I am glad I can be here now, too.”

He patted Lucky on the knee and nodded to Werner.

Werner said something in German to the doctor, who simply nodded and shuffled to the room’s hatch. He knocked twice, then stood back as the panzerritters hinged it open. He had to lean against the door frame to make it over the hatch’s lip, but then he was gone.

Once the hatch closed behind him, Werner winked at his captives.

“I feel pretty honored, to be honest with you. The doctor’s letting me handle all of you how I see fit,” he said. “For science, of course.”

He put his pinkie and forefinger in his mouth then whistled sharply.

Six men dressed in white floor-length leather aprons came into the galley through the operating room door. They wore white gas masks and had that weird swastika emblazoned on their chests, the one with too many arms that made it look like a dead octopus or an infected wound.

Werner wandered down until he stood over Dutton, watching the blood drip from his broken nose. He made a quick check-mark on his clipboard, then told his white-clad orderlies:

“This one first.”

Bucket's eyes grew wide and he turned to his assistant, but he could only yell as the six orderlies mobbed Dutton, unlocking his wrists and ankles. He got in one of two kicks, powerful enough to knock Nazis of their feet and across the narrow room, but there were too many of them. They carried him thrashing into the operating theater, Nazis clamped on each arm and leg.

Dutton's shout was cut off as the operating room door slammed shut behind him.

The orderlies were barely able to wrestle Dutton onto the operating room, much less onto the table. Dutton was trained in eastern martial arts and twisted like a cobra while punching like a locomotive. He would knock one orderly into the wall with a shattering kick or vicious chop, only to be dog-piled by the other four. Werner and Gerhardt stared through the window at the scene, seemingly entranced.

The perverse actions on the other side of the glass might as well have been a silent film as the thick window muted all of the action. Dutton was holding his own against the Nazis. One peeled off and opened a locker. He began handing out long harpoons festooned with coiled wires. The Nazis, now puffed-up with weapons in hand, surrounded Dutton and forced him into the corner.

“No!” Bucket yelled. Gerhardt watched with a smirk.

Dutton charged the wall of barbed spearheads, only to be met with a bright electrical arc that raked his chest. The shock hit him like a ton of bricks, dropping him to the floor in a spasming heap. The krauts took their turns stabbing at the fallen official, blasting him with voltage over and over.

When Dutton came to, he’d already been locked into the operating table's restraints. One of orderlies tore Dutton's uniform open, sending buttons flying. He attached wires to Dutton's neck and chest, ignoring the blood steaming off his skin.

The machine on the other end of the wires sprang to life. A small screen showed a frantically jumping white line on a black background. As Dutton roused himself, the jumped faster. They were monitoring his heart.

The orderlies prepared cameras and audio-recording equipment in the room and directed it all at Dutton. Werner noted their readiness and the time, then addressed the officials.

“See, your deaths can’t be simple executions, gents. No, your bodies are valuable resources for scientific progress. Some of you might not even die, though, between you and me, death might be preferable. Plus, you guys are the Office. Legends around here. What we do to you has got to be just as legendary.”

He turned around and chastised Lucky, MacLeod, and the Colonel like a substitute teacher.

“Now please, please, please don't try anything. I know it’s tough watching your friend there, but just sit tight. Your seats are tamperproof, rigged to inject you full of strychnine if they open without a key. Struggle too much and you’ll be pumping blood out your eyes and ears. right there on my floor.”

Werner stalked over to the window, pen and clipboard at the ready. He flipped through a few pages of notes before settling on something.

“V.K. Zwei ,” he said. He held up his clipboard so the orderlies could see what he was looking at. They nodded and got to work.

“V.K. Zwei, ha. They think they can have power without sacrifice,” Gerhardt muttered. He leaned over to whisper to Lucky:

“This one has convinced Metzger that he can force muscle and bone growth in the Vargulf without preparing the subject surgically. Herr Ford, have you every seen someone's insides spontaneously double in mass? It takes training and pain to withstand such a thing. It is foolish to think otherwise.”

Lucky leaned forward in his seated, suddenly terrified.

Behind the glass, Dutton was fully awake. He was struggling against the restraints in defiance of the two harpoon-armed orderlies standing at the ready.

Another orderly appeared from off to the right, carrying a six-foot-long metal pipe topped with a large-bore syringe. A brown, sickly fluid oozed within.

Dutton began struggling with desperate vigor at the sight of the needle. The orderly stood back from the thrashing man, attempting to stick him with the needle from as far back as the pipe would let him, but Dutton's flailing threw off his aim.

After a moment, he snapped at one of his harpoon-wielding comrades, who stabbed his spearhead into Dutton's shoulder, then pressed a button on its haft. Electricity reverberated through the battery he wore on his back, up through his harpoon, then thrummed through Dutton's body. Dutton's back arched and his eyes rolled back, then he collapsed onto the table, wheezing but still.

The orderly lifted the syringe-tipped pipe and jammed the needle into Dutton's right forearm, which Werner also noted. The syringe's alien contents dumped into Dutton's bloodstream. The orderly traded out the syringe-spear for his harpoon, which he leveled at Dutton.

Dutton's heartbeat was going wild on the machine, jumping at least four times a second. He was sweating bullets, helpless against whatever foul chemicals were tearing apart his veins. He stopped struggling and took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and became motionless. His racing heartbeat instantly slowed to a crawl, only one beat every two or three seconds.

“Shaolin meditation,” the Colonel explained.

“He learned that straight from them monks,” Bucket said. He began rambling, anything to keep his mind off what was happening to his assistant. “He can hold his breath for ten minutes, keep his hand steady as a statue, and walk across thorns and coals. Keeps a calm head. That's how I knew he'd be a good bomb guy, that's why I brought him in. He can take whatever they’re dishing out.”

“Chinese mysticisms won't help him,” Gerhardt snorted. He casually pulled swastika-stamped cigarette case from an inner jacket pocket and removed a hand-rolled cigarette and a match.

“He's helping himself in the only way he can,” the Colonel responded. He looked over to Gerhardt. “Would you mind if I partake as well? I'm generally more partial to my pipe, but, as they say, one in my position can't be choosey.”

Gerhardt chuckled and pulled another cigarette, leaning across MacLeod and Lucky to put it in Halistone's mouth. He struck his match across the bottom of his boot, first lighting the Colonel's cigarette, then his own. Back in the operating room, Dutton's calm heartbeat slowed to a halt, then just to a flat line, unwavering. Werner checked his watch and made another note.

The harpoon wound in Dutton's shoulder had ceased bleeding. It looked like it had scabbed over.

“I knew this formula wouldn't work,” Gerhardt said through a puff of smoke. “One must earn this power, not just receive it.”

They waited a few seconds, watching Dutton in silent horror. His heartbeat stayed still. Gerhardt broke that silence.

“It is funny, though,” he said. “If you had not killed his wife, the old man would have never worked for us. The Führer would have had him shot like the Jew he is.”

“I was there, Isaak. I remember that it was your guns firing, not ours,” the Colonel replied.

“If you had let him be, there would never have been any crossfire to get caught up in,” Gerhardt countered.

“He still writes her a letter every morning, you know,” Werner said, still staring ahead through the glass, taking notes despite nothing happening.

“It was Metzger himself who contacted us back then. He told us that his family was unsafe,” the Colonel said. “The causes are irrelevant, but the effects are irreversible. We would run that operation differently today, you know. We would not leave anyone alive to chase us.”

“You'd fail today, too, not that he has family left to spare,” Werner sneered. “Look at you, captured within minutes of landing.”

“Still, I thank you,” Gerhardt said, taunting them. “Without your failure, I would not be the man I am today. His wife's carcass in his arms was all we needed to harness him. We had considered removing her ourselves, of course, but it was assumed he'd kill himself or destroy his work were we to try it. But with his precious Cordula dead and you to blame? He broke the way we wanted. If not for you, his research would have gone onto the Party's pyre rather than into its armory. So I thank you for your bungled rescue attempt. It became the foundation of the Vargulf Korps and many other breakthroughs.”

“And it looks like another official has failed as well,” Werner interjected. He tapped the glass. In the operating room, Dutton's heart hadn’t beat in a minute.

The closest orderly laid down his harpoon and approached Dutton's body. He examined him closely, checked for a pulse at his wrist, then shook his head. Werner noted the time. The orderly peeled off the heartbeat monitors then unlocked the restraint on Dutton's left wrist, before reaching across his body to unlock the right.

Dutton's spine arched with a terrible spasm, his freed arm flailing about with such force that he flung the orderly across the room and into the stone wall. The Nazi slid to the floor, out cold or dead. Dutton's eyes were open and his mouth was locked in a howl of pain, silent on the other side of the glass.

Muscles twisted and writhed under Dutton's skin like burning snakes then burst through in pink sprays as his bones contorted uncontrollably. His chest opened down the middle, twisting, thorny ribs flexing and emerging like they were shredding wet newspaper. Dutton's biceps and thighs boiled then overflowed, the growing, malignant excess flesh tumbling forth to crawl across the floor.

The thrown orderly scrambled to his feet and grabbed his harpoon, charging Dutton as he thrashed on the table. Werner pounded on the glass, yelling in German to no avail. The orderly drove his harpoon downward, into the wriggling mass of ruined flesh, shattered bone, and tattered skin that had been Dutton's abdomen.

Electrical arcs jumped from the spearhead into Dutton. His swelling flesh began smoking and popping, then burst into a gout of white-hot flame, forcing Lucky to close his eyes against the bright glare. The orderly's mask and white uniform were being scorched by the sparks spewing from the still-convulsing Dutton, but the Nazi leaned in and held the harpoon firm: the weapon remained impaled in Dutton's mutilated chest, pulsing lightning, until everything stopped moving.

The white flames eventually died out as the last life drained from Lance Bombardier Willie Dutton's smoking, twisted remains. Bucket was sobbing.

Werner's pen scratched out line after line of notes as he observed the entire grisly murder. Finally, after three pages of observations, he rapped his knuckles on the thick glass window.

The Nazis nodded an acknowledgment and began a quick cleanup. The orderly left his harpoon buried in the burnt-out chest cavity to use as a meat hook when he dragged the corpse off the table. Dutton thudded against the floor, twisted and misshapen limbs splayed around him like he was sleeping off a bender. They pulled his corpse to the corner of the room, just off camera, and left him there, staring at the white ceiling.

One of the camera-crew pulled a hose from somewhere and began spraying down the table, the ceiling, everywhere Dutton's blood had landed. Werner turned around and left them to their cleaning.

“Not quite the desired result, though interesting nonetheless,” he said. Werner looked up from his notepad at the remaining officials. “There is much to learn, even when the actual result and the hypothesis do not align. That is the beauty of science.”

“You'll suffer for this, you do know that, Werner,” the Colonel said, his voice calm and certain. His tone didn't waver. He was not discussing anything he considered a possibility, he was stating a fact.

“Yeah, sure thing, pal,” Werner muttered.

“You're a dead man, traitor,” Bucket sniffled, tears blurring his glasses. He didn't look up as they hosed the last of Dutton off the equipment.

Behind Werner, one of the orderlies tapped on the window. His white apron and mask were blackened by electrical scorches and reddened with sprayed blood. Werner twisted around and nodded to him. The masked Nazis entered the room again, looking over the row, fists clenching in anticipation of a struggle. Werner checked his notes, then strolled up the row to stand in front of Cão. The scarred sailor looked up to the traitor, a canine snarl twisting his face.

“Even though Doctor Metzger has retreated to his private laboratory, that doesn't mean we can't continue the fun, does it? The doctor is mainly interested in results, not the messy middle step of testing. He has many other projects to work on, so it is my duty to extract the raw data from this... mess.” He extended his arm and turned, like a salesman presenting the dripping operating room to the officials. He smirked, then flipped a few pages back on his clipboard.

“Ah,” he mumbled, then turned to Cão. “You're next, my Iberian friend.”

Werner motioned to the orderlies, who pounced upon Cão as viciously as they had dog-piled Dutton. The Portuguese man waited, calm, until they unlocked his wrists.

Cão’s scarred face contorted with rage. His sinewy muscles swelled beneath the scars and ink. He lashed out at all six orderlies, flinging them to the ground as if they were children.

Werner dashed to the door as Cão set upon the first man, kicking the orderly so hard in the gas mask that his metal air filter punched through the white rubber, deep into his face. Blood squirted into the stale air and hadn't hit the ground before Cão pounced on a second man, beating his knuckles ragged as he shattered that orderly's glass lenses down into his eyes.

Werner had made it to the steel hatch and was pounding on it with a bare fist against the thick steel, desperately trying to escape. Before get it open, Gerhardt had burst into action.

In a blur he was out of his seat and past Lucky. His fist swung straight and solid, clocking the rampaging, blood-soaked Cão in the base of the skull, felling him with a single blow.

Cão crumpled to the floor as Werner finally managed to crank the heavy hatch open. He shouted something and four panzerritters burst in, MG 42's leveled and ready to fire. Gerhardt looked at the two felled orderlies, then barked an order in German to the lead panzerritter, Meyer. The armored Nazis motioned to his men, who dragged the corpse and blinded man out of the room. The blood was shockingly vivid against the white floor.

Gerhardt slammed the hatch shut behind them.

The remaining orderlies scrambled to their feet, ready to stomp the life out of the defenseless Cão. Werner jumped in their way, babbling quickly in German. Whatever he said elicited crude chuckles from them and got them to stand down. Werner nodded, then stepped aside, allowing them to scoop up the dazed sailor and carry him into the operating room.

Gerhardt returned to his seat next to Lucky, massaging the knuckles of his boney hand. The Nazi leaned over and rested his elbow on Lucky's shoulder.

“I understand your Portuguese friend will get the opportunity to test out a new technology donated by our eastern allies,” he said, grinning around his disfiguring scar. “One more experiment, Herr Ford, then we get to introduce your friends to the Maiden herself. It is all very exciting.”

Gerhardt clapped his hands like an eager child, then quickly clamped them between his knees, perching on the edge of his seat in anticipation.

On the other side of the glass, Cão had been shackled onto the operating table. They weren't taking any chances with him, so they stretched wide leather straps over his forehead, knees, and waist. One of the blood-spattered orderlies rotated a wheel on the table's base, lifting and turning it to maneuver Cão into an upright position. His chest expanded rhythmically, but there was no sign he knew what was going on.

Two orderlies went back to man their cameras, while a third opened a long gun case. He began assembling a massive machine gun piece-by-piece. After a few minutes, he'd created a complicated, top-loading, pistol-gripped weapon that was almost four feet from the end of its barrel to its wooden butt-stock. It had a wooden carrying handle above the barrel while an integrated bipod dangled below. The gun looked awkward and bulky, but effective and deadly all at once.

A fourth orderly opened another case and removed a box magazine and a few steel-tipped bullets. He loaded them into the magazine, one-by-one, until it held ten of them. Gerhardt leaned over to whisper to Lucky again:

“Have you seen a Japanese Type 99 light machine gun before? A unique firearm, though it is only the contents of its magazine interest me.”

The orderlies they got to work on a that rig halfway between and easel and a vice. They orderlies left the room momentarily, then returned lugging a half-inch steel plate between them. With a bit of effort, they locked it upright into their rig, directly between Cão and the gun.

One orderly readied the camera and audio equipment while another prepared the Type 99. He carefully inserted its magazine then pulled back and released its charging handle. He settled in behind the butt stock, aiming down the sights at the steel plate and Cão behind it. He left his finger off the trigger, awaiting a command.

The two orderlies who'd wrestled the steel plate into place took their positions behind the firing line. One stood by as the machine gunner's loader, waiting for orders. Werner gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up from the other side fo the window and the loader patted the gunner on the shoulder and stepped back. The cameraman adjusted his lens, and the other orderly, the sound technician, brought his microphone in a little closer, tweaked his levels, then both gave Werner their own thumbs-ups.

The gunner settled in behind the butt-stock, aimed down the barrel, and tightened his finger on the trigger.

Cão was still woozy behind the steel plate; he wouldn't know what hit him.

Lucky looked down. Blood from one of the Nazis Cão had beaten was sprayed across his boots. There was blood everywhere he looked.

Like what you read? Buy me a beer or @ me about it.

Copyright © 2022 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

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