The three-ton rolled out of the way—
“Waho Mohammad!” came the Red Devils’ strange battle cry.
A bolt of fire shot into the crowd, turning ghouls into shrieking human torches. A paratrooper with a flamethrower emerged, followed by two more. They blasted the throng with arcing sheets of flame.
Steiner ducked his head and rode straight into this fiery hell.
The draugr were all around, trembling as they screamed in fiery torment, radiating heat like a furnace.
Then they were gone, and the freezing cold returned.
Steiner laughed at the surprised faces of the Red Devils on the other side of the gate as he burst through, streaming sparks and smoke from his smoldering jacket.
Then a paratrooper tackled him, hurling him off his bike to land hard in the snow. Other Brits gathered around to pack snow against his burning uniform. His raw face began to sting.
“Get this bloody Kraut on his feet,” a man snapped.
Hands raised him up and held him fast. Steiner stood on wobbly feet, grateful for their support. His jacket was still smoking as he sketched a salute. “Gefreiter Steiner reporting, Herr Hauptmann.”
“What are you doing here? Where is your unit?”
“I have it.”
The officer fixed him with a fierce glare. “You have the Overman serum.”
Steiner tapped the thermos dangling from his neck. “Ja. Here.”
The Brit’s stiff upper lip broke into a smile. “Lieutenant Clarke!”
Another officer rushed over and stomped his feet as he saluted. “Sah!”
“Inform Colonel Westall we have the serum.”
“Sah!”
“Then kindly ask the jockeys to warm up their planes. We’re going home.”
The paratroopers let up a ragged cheer and dragged Steiner past some big flak guns toward one of the hangars, where they set him on the cold floor with some blankets. Somebody gave him a steel cup of hot tea, and then they left him alone.
Reeking of smoke and his face still stinging and flushed, he sipped the tea and watched the RAF crews ready their big transport planes. He was a hero now, which made sense in this insane world but not in any other.
Setting down his cup, he curled up and went to sleep, hoping that when he awoke, he’d be back in the real world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE SIGNAL
Sergeant Wilkins emptied his carbine into the draugr falling upon Muller. The German maid shrugged off the bullets and knelt next to the wounded soldier.
She ran her talons lovingly along his cheek before leaning in with her mouth yawning open as far as it would go.
He rapidly popped his last ten-round magazine into the ammo well and chambered a round—
The woman’s head burst like a crushed grape. The body followed, keeling over into the splattered snow.
Wilkins looked around. He hadn’t fired. The German sniper hadn’t either.
More crashing gunfire brought down the rest of the ghouls.
He scanned the ruined houses for his saviors.
“Coming out!” somebody called.
A squad of paratroopers in red berets emerged from the nearby trees with smoking Stens.
A wiry para wearing sergeant’s stripes crouched in front of him. “I’m Sergeant Bayley. Who the devil are you, and what are you doing here?”
“Sergeant Wilkins,” he rasped.
“You’re one of Colonel Adams’ commandos, aren’t you?”
Wilkins nodded. “You arrived in the nick of time.”
“We were in the neighborhood and heard the motorcycle and shooting,” Bayley said. “That got our attention. When we heard, ‘Waho Mohammad,’ we made a dash for it.”
Wilkins grinned. Anytime, anywhere a paratrooper heard the war cry of the airborne, they came running. This time, it had saved his life.
Bayley tilted his head at the Germans lying on the road. “And what about these men? Fallschirmjäger?”
“That man there has a sample of the Overman serum. We need to get him to the airfield. Can you help?”
The paras already were. One poured sulfa onto Muller’s gut wound and taped a compress over it. Another helped Schulte sit up and offered him a canteen.
“That’s why we’re out here on recon patrol,” Bayley told him. “With all the gunfire going on around the city, we were starting to wonder if any of the poor sods would make it. They’re nails, Sergeant.”
The slang was short for, ‘tough as nails.’ In this case, tough as Red Devils, a nod of respect for a worthy adversary.
“They are,” Wilkins agreed. Those that were still alive, anyway. If they were nails, the draugr were the hammer.
Just as he’d be Lieutenant Reiser’s, if he ever met that bastard again.
No need to tell Sergeant Bayley about the German officer’s attempted murder. Relations between the British, Americans, and Germans were complicated enough already, their alliance fragile. Wilkins would harbor his grudge until later, if there was a later. For now, he had to complete his mission.
“Can you walk?” Bayley said. “Your leg’s a mess, mate.”
Wilkins grit his teeth at the prospect. “I could use some assistance, if you don’t mind.”
The paratroopers hauled him and the Germans to their feet. Bayley led the way with his Sten, followed by a cheerful Welshman who supported Wilkins as he hobbled along. Another two of the men hauled the groaning Muller between them. Schulte and the rest of the squad brought up the rear, the sniper stumbling and looking pale.
“Hang in there, Yohann,” Wilkins said, wincing at every step that sent pain ripping through his calf. “You can make it.”
At the sound of a Red Devil speaking German to Fallschirmjäger as if they were comrades, the Welshman shot him a sidelong glance. “War makes strange bedfellows, eh?”
Wilkins could only chuckle. “It certainly does, mate.”
A series of flares popped into the air over the nearby rooftops.
“That’s the signal,” Bayley said. “The battalion’s moving out.”
Wilkins chewed his lip. Either somebody else had made it through with the serum, or command was writing off the operation. “We’d best make haste.”
He still had his documents to deliver. They might be vital.
“Don’t you worry, Sergeant,” said the Welshman. “They’re not leaving without me.”
As they cleared the ruins of the residential district, the sandbagged walls of Tempelhof Airport came into view. Bayley halted his motley squad and produced an animal call. The Red Devils answered.
They moved out again, passing through a camouflaged gap in the wall. Then they were on the airfield. Big flak guns aimed at the gray sky. Hangars, one of them crushed by bombs. Fuel lorries and the bodies of Luftwaffe who’d held the airport to the last. The Skytrooper planes lay stacked on the runways, ready to take off. Platoons were assembling in front of them with their gear. Luftwaffe prisoners filed onto one of the planes, hands in the air.
“The Yanks already bugged out after taking mass casualties,” the Welshman said, ever cheerful even as he shared this disheartening news. “Their op was a total botch job. Dropped right on top of a herd of the buggers. Their airfield wasn’t fortified like ours. They just couldn’t hold it, the poor bleedin’ bastards.”
Minutes later, Wilkins sat on the ground wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot tea while a medic fussed over his leg. Only now did the stress of his ordeal catch up to him, giving him a trembling fit.
He’d used up quite a few of his nine lives today.
Captain Wesley questioned him at length about his operation and its results. It was a long story.