Zeigler, Strauss, Bormann, Hess and Göring had all been fortunate enough to escape the attack relatively unscathed, save for some minor burns and scrapes. The briefing room was situated toward the front of the mansion, and as such had not only been left intact and undamaged, but had also provided them with easy access to the front entrance and safety beyond.
Strauss had been separated from the rest during the mayhem that followed, but the group had otherwise managed to stay together, and now the danger seemed to be finally abating, they’d entered the stables thinking it a private place where secret conversations might well be continued undisturbed.
“Thank the Gods I took the liberty of having The Führer’s transport sabotaged,” Zeigler exclaimed with clear relief in his voice as they all filed in and Bormann secured the door. “I’d intended it purely to allow us an opportunity to speak freely… it seems now it was a blessing in disguise…!”
“I’m looking forward to filling him in on tonight’s excitement,” Hess observed with an evil smile. “Reuters categorically assured him all of these ‘Hindsight’ jets had been destroyed in the Scapa Flow raid… it appears now this ‘guarantee’ was somewhat premature. I shouldn’t think that will go down well.”
“Looks like the lucky bastard will live,” Göring growled with obvious disappointment. “The officer at the field ambulance station said he’d pull through all right, although there might well be some recovery time in hospital.”
“Any time out of ‘Adolf’s’ presence is dangerous for someone wanting to maintain power,” Bormann noted with a faint smile of his own. “I’m sure we can make that work to our advantage.”
Schiller heard all of it as they coldly discussed the ‘good fortune’ of his commander and friend being hospitalised, his rage building the whole time. He’d known Reuters and had served with him the whole of his military career in one form or another, and the loyalty and protectiveness he felt toward the man was great indeed as a result. The generalleutnant didn’t realise he was grinding his teeth against the tension as another blinding moment of migraine tried to force its way through his consciousness.
He found that his free hand was now shaking almost uncontrollably, and it was only his vice-like grip on the pistol that prevented the other hand from doing the same. Closing his eyes tight against the pain in his head, he tried to ignore it and focussed his attention on the words of the men in the room outside.
“…First of all,” Bormann continued, “we still need to find out what that bloody aide of his did or didn’t hear outside the door earlier, and do whatever needs to be done to keep him quiet… we’ll all have some difficult questions to answer if Reuters finds out what we’ve been up to.”
As he listened to that last remark, Schiller’s rage finally overflowed and his eyes snapped open, wild and alight. The first thing he saw was the P-38 handgun he held, pointing at the ceiling in his right hand, and the image burned into his mind, galvanising him into action.
“I shouldn’t concern yourselves with that, gentlemen,” he advised loudly as he stepped from the room at the far end of the stable and strode purposefully toward them, fire bright and intense in his eyes, “…you can all rest assured I know how to keep a secret…!”
Snapping back the slide on the P-38 and loading a round into the chamber, Schiller raised the weapon before any of them could react and shot Ziegler through the forehead. The back of the man’s head exploded in a spray of blood and fragments, the lifeless corpse already falling to the floor as he shot Göring between the eyes a second later. Hess, the right side of his face coated in Zeigler’s blood and brains, was turning his head away seeking some kind of imagined shelter behind Bormann as the third bullet struck him in the neck, blowing out one of his carotid arteries and most of his throat into the bargain. A crimson geyser of his own blood fountained into the air and spattered across a nearby wall as he toppled over, leaving only the Nazi Party Reichsleiter remaining.
Bormann — made of far sterner stuff than the rest of them — had at least managed to slip a hand around the pistol at his own belt as Schiller came to a halt two metres away, drawing aim directly at his face. Both men froze for a moment and each met the other’s gaze, Bormann’s eyes as cold and emotionless as Schiller’s were crazed and alight.
“I should expect there’s no likelihood you’d accept a bribe of any kind…?” Bormann asked in level, almost good-humoured tones. “I thought not,” he added with little regret as he noted the evil smile that spread across Schiller’s face. A slug punched a hole between his eyes as he made one last, futile attempt to draw his weapon, and he fell dead beside the others, the pistol clattering from his lifeless fingers and sliding across the floor to stop at Schiller’s feet.
Any semblance of emotion disappeared from the generalleutnant’s features as he worked quickly with the bodies, knowing it’d be just a few desperate minutes before those shots brought armed guards to the stable. He picked up Bormann’s fallen Luger, checking and ‘safing’ it before tucking it behind his back. The pain in his head had receded, adrenalin surging through his system once more and pushing him on with renewed strength and sudden resourcefulness.
Taking a soot-stained handkerchief from his pocket, he held the guard’s pistol gingerly by the hot, smoking muzzle and carefully wiped down the surfaces of the butt, slide and trigger, before crouching down and placing the weapon in Bormann’s right hand. Enclosing it in his own fingers, he forced the lifeless corpse to grasp the weapon in a rough semblance of a firing grip. As he released the hand and let the weapon drop, he took the opportunity to use the handkerchief once more and clean the last of his fingerprints from where he’d held the gun by its barrel.
A moment later he was done, and he jogged quickly back down to the room that’d been Lowenstein’s cell, snatching the kerosene lantern from the top of the bookcase. Moving back to the centre of the stables with equal speed, he drew back his arm and tossed the lantern toward the pile of bodies with great force. The nearby stalls might well have been empty of horses, but were nevertheless still littered with piles of hay, and they instantly caught alight as the lamp smashed heavily against the back wall and sprayed burning kerosene all about.
So close to the earlier fires that had all but burned the nearby storage sheds to the ground, the far end of the stable was still quite hot and incredibly dry, and it took just the slightest encouragement for most of one corner to burst into intense flame close to where Zeigler had fallen. Patches of fire were already flickering from the bodies where kerosene had sprayed from the shattered lamp, and it was just seconds before the main fire was threatening to engulf them also, which was exactly Schiller’s intention.
He was standing by the open doorway at the other end of the structure as the first guards arrived just seconds later, sent running at full speed across the open space between the stables and the still-burning main buildings as the alarm was raised at the sound of gunfire. Their submachine guns were held at the ready, but everyone knew Generalleutnant Schiller by sight, and neither of them gave a moment’s thought to the idea that he might be involved in anyway.