A sudden, deafening ‘crack’ like the detonation of a large firework thundered overhead, and everyone standing exposed in the open felt the push of a pressure wave as the low-level sonic boom buffeted the surrounding area. Every building in the area was shaken by the sound, and several windows on the upper floors of the mansion shattered, showering bystanders with glass fragments.
Reuters and Schiller were momentarily at a loss as to what they should do, such was the shock that rooted them to the spot as the unmistakable and chilling sound of a powerful jet engine overhead reached them above the siren’s wail. Both men felt the stab of real fear for the first time as all covered their ears against the deafening howl, neither wanting to believe the unavoidable truth as they caught each other’s horrified stare. The jet clearly been travelling very fast, and both men knew from long experience that meant the aircraft was already long past by the time they’d actually heard it.
All eyes suddenly turned skyward as one of the tanker crew called out a sharp warning, pointing toward the sky above the mansion itself. A lone searchlight had picked out a gleaming object of unpainted steel, falling far too slowly to be an aircraft and travelling in a much more dangerous direction: straight down. No one present needed to be an expert to recognise it was a bomb, and there was no time to act as both Reuters and Schiller realised at roughly the same time that the weapon clearly wasn’t a 1940s-era device. Suspended from a large, ribbon-style parachute, it fell with agonizing slowness and disappeared from view on the far side of the mansion, coming down somewhere behind the structure but still lethally close. Reuters’ last thoughts were the terrible realisation that what he’d seen was a nuclear weapon as the bomb detonated, and everything suddenly turned to fire.
Thorne had jammed his throttles fully forward, seeking safety in speed and low altitude in the frantic seconds following the release of the B83 bomb, ‘heading for the deck’, as the Australia rather tersely put it through gritted teeth. Trumbull felt the whole aircraft surge, as if freed from physical bonds as the weapon fell away, and he was slammed into his seat by massive acceleration as the F-35E’s afterburner kicked in. Trumbull counted off the seconds in his mind, not truly certain of what kind of devastation they were about to unleash behind them, but steeling himself for the terrifying unknown as best he could. Thorne had warned him not to look… warned him that even at a range of ten miles, the initial flash could leave him permanently blinded. He forced himself to stare directly ahead, focussing on the back of Thorne’s flight helmet as he murmured a silent prayer for himself and his family.
It was sixty-seconds after the drop and half way through a long, banking turn to the south-west as Thorne was finally forced to admit that the weapon had inexplicably failed to detonate… and admission accompanied by several seconds of intense and rather frightful swearing that left his passenger rather shocked and feeling a little fragile. There’d been no flash visible behind them, which there certainly should’ve been, nor had they felt the buffeting of a nuclear blast Thorne also would’ve expected. It took Trumbull a few seconds to realise what the man was up to as the turn they entered into continued far beyond what should’ve been the correct direction.
“You’re going back…?” He asked querulously, noting the instruments before him indicated they were indeed heading back in the direction they’d come.
“You’re damn right I’m going back…!” Thorne snarled angrily, surging adrenaline set to explode in the aftermath of such an anti-climax. “Half of the fucking Somme should be a fucking fireball by now, and I want to know why it bloody-well isn’t! For that, I need an ‘eyeball’ of ground-fucking-zero!” The tone and level of foul language gave a fair indication that there was a lot of unspent anger and frustration welling up within the man, and it also told Trumbull that disagreement might not be the best idea at that moment.
They were back over the target area once more within another minute, and there was still no chance of searchlight crews even finding them, travelling as they were at over 1,400km/hr, let alone remaining on track long enough for anyone to get off a decent shot. As they roared past close overhead, there was also little time to gather any detail, but what they did see was telling enough. The area surrounding the mansion was still illuminated brightly, but now by fire rather than flood lighting. The rear half of the main building appeared to have collapsed, and a massive fire was spreading through that part of the structure, already threatening to engulf the entire house. Minor explosions were still going off as the jet howled past overhead once more and was gone again, leaving a second sonic boom, with Thorne now at least calm enough to return the Lighting to its correct course of egress to the south-west.
“What on earth could’ve happened?” Trumbull ventured gingerly after allowing a few more minutes of ‘cool down’ time. “Everything was checked!”
“Checked, double-checked and triple-fucking-checked…!” Thorne hissed vehemently, wishing he had a clear target for the seething fury welling within him at the unexplained failure. “And then they were bloody checked again! I’m fucked if I know what went wrong but I’m going to find out.” There was a pause before he continued. “I’ll tell you another thing for free… that fire was nowhere near big enough to take everyone out — if Reuters or Schiller make it out alive, you can bet your arse there’ll be some very pissed-off Flankers in the air shortly, looking to start some shit. A few hundred thousand Frogs just got a let-off tonight, but we may well be fucked…!”
Chaos reigned around the entire headquarters area as pillars of fire billowed skyward from the southern corner of the mansion. The structure was burning on all floors, and lesser explosions went off here and there as heat and spreading flame set off ammunition and fuel tanks in nearby armoured vehicles and gun emplacements. The initial blast had silenced the air raid siren, and only the screams of the injured or dying pierced the cacophony of the roaring inferno.
Schiller was barely in control of his senses as he hobbled through the crippling heat and smoke, desperately making his way across to the far side of the open compound. The HQ’s alternate CP, a heavily-reinforced concrete bunker, lay at the front of the mansion, two hundred metres to the north-west and positioned in an area that had escaped any damage. A stream of terrified human beings poured in a stream from the building’s front entrance — young women, HQ and catering staff, dignitaries and Wehrmacht officers alike — and many carried injuries and burns ranging from minor to severe indeed.
It took several minutes to cross the distance to the CP as he threaded his way between dazed, fleeing survivors, hindered as he was by a serious burn to the lower part of his left leg that was causing him to limp noticeably. It required a great deal of willpower to maintain control over the constant pain, and he knew adrenaline was playing a large part in assisting him. Schiller wasn’t looking forward to what was in store for him when that adrenal surge finally tapered off and the pain really hit.