Three of the panzer crewmen in their group had been killed in the explosion, Leipart among them. The bomb’s conventional priming charge had been sufficient to ignite the fuel stored in the tanker parked at the rear of the main building, and the subsequent secondary explosion had spread flaming gasoline over a huge area. Reuters had also been caught by the substantial blast, although to a far lesser extent, and Schiller had been able to extinguish the fire on his commander’s back and legs quickly by rolling him around on the ground. The Reichsmarschall remained unconscious through the whole ordeal, having been thrown heavily against the side of the tank in the explosion and knocked out cold. It’d taken some time to get a medic on the scene to begin administering first aid, and only then had Schiller left his friend to head for the Command Post.
A thousand desperate thoughts whirled about in his mind at once, and he felt as if his senses were overloading as he stood frozen for a moment at the entrance the bunker. There was already a small gathering of high- and middle-ranking Wehrmacht staff officers from all three services and the SS beginning to collect inside the CP, some of them carrying injuries, and all were aware by now that Reuters had been incapacitated during the attack. The responsibility of command therefore fell directly upon the shoulders of Albert Schiller, and the man was finding it difficult to deal with the intense pressure in his current state.
“Damage reports…!” The generalleutnant screamed wildly at the stunned officers inside the CP as he burst through the bunker’s thick, steel door. “I want some fucking damage reports and I want them now! I want to know dead, wounded and who’s still alive out there!” He almost leaped across the space between the door and the tables holding the bunker’s radio equipment in a flash. “Somebody find out where the fuck our bloody fire trucks are… we don’t have an entire company of those bastards stationed here for them to sit around playing with themselves! You…!” He bellowed, pointing an angry finger and fixing a terrified leutnant nearby with a piercing glare. “Get Fliegerkorps on the line and get every bloody night-fighter on the French coast into the air… and every bloody radar station in the country fired up too! There’s a fast enemy fighter out there somewhere, and if I don’t have a position on it and a projected course within five minutes, I will personally have someone shot!” As that man nervously picked up a phone and began speaking, he turned to another nearby officer, this time a captain. “Get me Lille air base…!”
Samuel Lowenstein clung to the bars of his cell window and tired desperately to crane his head this way and that, seeking any kind of assurance he wasn’t being left to die. The inferno that had once been a country estate was in clear view, and it was close enough that the ambient heat had already seared his cheeks and forehead. The bars themselves were warming to the point that it was difficult to keep bare skin in contact with them for fear of being burned. The inside of his small room was mostly dark, the only faint illumination coming from a small kerosene lantern sitting atop the bookcase.
That in itself wasn’t so much of a problem. The real concern in the man’s mind were two smaller, but nevertheless quite serious fires that had been started by the huge spray of exploding gasoline. A pair of small storages shed standing close to the far end of the stable were burning furiously, and it seemed that a nearby 88mm flak battery had been using at least one of the structures for storing ammunition, as a number of smaller explosions had gone a long way toward partially demolishing one of the sheds already. Lowenstein couldn’t see the outside of the stable from his point of view, but he knew the inside of the opposite end of the building was already smoking badly, and he’d be in grave trouble if he didn’t somehow get out of there soon.
A layer of grey smoke was actually collecting now beneath the ceiling, and he could smell the thatched roof above him starting to smoulder. He’d almost given up hope entirely at the moment he finally heard the door just outside his room being unlocked and thrown wide. Turning quickly, he found himself staring at an injured and smoke-blackened Joachim Müller, the man nursing a fractured left arm and so exhausted he needed to lean against the doorway to the cell for support. He wore a tuxedo that was singed, torn and missing its jacket, his face streaked with a combination of sweat and tears.
“Fire trucks are on their way,” Müller panted slowly, finding it difficult to catch his breath, “but I don’t think they’ll make it in time to save this place… we need to get you out of here before it all burns to the ground.” The clamour of the fire bells could already be heard ringing in the background, growing ever louder.
“You still remembered me, Joachim,” Lowenstein smiled in an honest display of appreciation and great relief. “You’re injured! Have you any help?”
“I’ve broken it, I think,” Müller replied, wincing in pain as he glanced down at his cradled arm. “Nothing that can’t be mended though,” he shrugged in reply. “I tried to get someone to come with me, but it’s chaos out there… there are too many wounded and dying to be attended to…”
It was all Lowenstein needed to hear. Müller never had a chance to say another word as he drew the pistol he’d been hiding beneath his shirt and raised it in his right hand, firing three silenced shots into the man’s chest. Even Lowenstein was hard pressed to hear the sound of the suppressor over the noise outside, and it was a few seconds before Müller even realised what had happened. The weapon was quite small — a ‘Baby’ Browning automatic, firing the low-powered .25ACP cartridge — yet at close range it was nevertheless powerful enough to be quite lethal. The New Eagles’ head technician stared down for a moment in stunned surprise at the crimson flower ‘blossoming’ across his chest, before raising his uncomprehending eyes to look once more at the man he’d thought of as a friend and collapsing in a heap in the middle of the doorway.
Lowenstein didn’t waste any time. He stopped for a moment to stare down at Müller as he stood in the doorway, pistol hanging loosely in his hand. The man was still alive — barely — but was struggling to breathe as he lay helpless on his back, flecks of blood collecting at the corner of his lips to match the colour of the huge stain still spreading across his upper body. He couldn’t speak, but his lips tried to form words, and his eyes displayed clear and conscious recognition of what had happened. There was also a clear sense of pain and betrayal.
“You want to know why…?” Lowenstein almost spat as he stared down, making no move to help the man who’d been almost his only constant visitor through almost a decade of imprisonment. “Because I’m a Jew, and you’re a fucking Nazi… that’s why!” This time he did spit at the ground by Müller’s twitching feet, as if to add emphasis to the venom in his words. “Because you played your part in this ‘grand plan’ to desecrate history, and took away my very existence in the bargain! Torture and interrogation, the likes of which you couldn’t even imagine in your worst nightmares, and ten fucking years of my life gone with the snap of someone’s fingers…” He clicked his own together in concert with his words. “You thought I was your friend, didn’t you, Joachim… but you threw your lot in with rabid dogs, and there’s only one way to deal with an animal that’s gone rabid…”