It was for this reason that Dieter Strauss was also able to clearly capture the murders of all four men on that same HD-quality video. So intent had he been in watching the proceedings, that he’d not even noticed Schiller’s emergence from the room at the far end of the stable until it was far too late to call a warning. The man’s gun fired seconds later, and Strauss was frozen in fear as his colleague and friend, Zeigler, had fallen with the first bullet. A man born of a media-savvy generation, he’d continued filming despite his terror, and he’d eventually recorded the entire episode, from the first entry of the group into the stable right up to Schiller’s exit after starting the fire.
The flames that burst up at that end of the stable however were far too close for comfort right from the outset, and at that point, Strauss finally decided discretion would definitely be the far better part of ‘valour’ in this particular instance. Shutting down the phone’s camera function, he pocketed the device and backed carefully away from the outside wall of the stable as smoke began to pour from the windows. A quick check around his position reassured him the coast was clear, and with that small comfort, he moved off quickly to the north-east, heading away from the scene of the crime and any possibility of being required to answer some very difficult questions.
Strauss wasn’t sure what he should do next. He needed to get in contact with the rest of the directors… that much was certain… but their leap at ultimate power had now been shattered, turning to smoke and ash as quickly as the bodies being consumed by the fire within the stable behind him. First things first, he decided with a simple rationale, and first of all he needed to get well away from that Wehrmacht HQ and find somewhere far safer, away from the influence of Reuters and Schiller. He had no doubt his absence would raise questions soon enough, and he intended to make sure he was a long way away when those questions were eventually asked. He patted his hand instinctively against the hardness of the iPhone in his trouser pocket, reassured he still felt its presence, and set himself a slow but steady, lumbering pace as he headed off across the French fields.
The nearest road passed straight by the northern perimeter of the property, running between Amiens and Villers-Bretonneux, and within a few moments, Strauss found himself standing by the side of the Route d’Amiens, his only illumination the gibbous moon above and the glow of the still-burning mansion perhaps 200 metres behind him to the south-west. He began to walk slowly eastward along the road, his mind reeling as he tried to come to terms with what had just occurred and what that meant with regard to his own safety in particular.
He was still considering the problem as the flicker of headlights behind him caught his attention. Strauss stopped for a moment and turned to stare as a large, black Citroen Traction Avant sedan approached, slowing down as it drew near and pulling onto the verge beside him. He stood watching, somewhat apprehensive, as the driver leaned across and wound down the passenger side window on his side. He found that the vehicle’s sole occupant was a uniformed colonel of the Waffen-SS.
“Looks like there’s been a bit of excitement back there for the OKW,” the officer remarked, mild surprise and interest showing on his face. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but there’s been an air attack,” Strauss replied nervously, panting and fighting for breath after the exertion of his flight from the scene. He paused for a moment as a shrewd expression crossed his face. “As an officer, you’re aware perhaps of the group known as the ‘Board of Directors’?”
“Mein Herr, everyone has heard of the ‘Directors’,” the standartenführer acknowledged with a wry smile.
“Well, my name is Dieter Strauss, and I’m one of them!” He shot back, needing no further urging to throw open the passenger door and slide in beside the man in the front seat. If the officer knew of their reputation, then he’d not be likely to deny any request Strauss made of him. “I need to get to Paris immediately!”
“Then you’re in luck, Herr Strauss… I’m headed there tonight myself — I just need to collect my adjutant from his billet at Villers-Bretonneux, and we can all head down there together. We’d be happy for the company.”
“Excellent!” Strauss nodded, almost smiling as he released a sigh of relief over the fact that at least something was finally going right that evening. “Rest assured you’ll be well compensated for your troubles.”
“Not at all, Mein Herr,” Phillip Brandis grinned back with a true sense of irony as he slotted the Citroen into gear and pulled back out onto the road, continuing his journey east. “It’s my pleasure entirely…!” The sedan accelerated quickly away and was soon lost to the darkness of the night.
“Bugger it!” Thorne growled angrily as a warning signal popped up on his main display. “Our EW systems are picking up emissions from a Flanker-type air search radar to the north… there goes the neighbourhood!”
“Can they see us?”
“Wouldn’t think so… not yet anyway… the signal’s very faint, and it’d have to cut through a lot of clutter to get us. He’d have trouble at that range even if we were returning a signal from a full-sized radar cross-section, which we’re not. Radar emissions can generally be picked up long before they’re able to detect an aircraft in return — particularly one such as ours.” He consulted a map of France slipped inside a clear-covered pocket on his upper right leg. “Looks like they’re out over the Channel somewhere… maybe near Guernsey or Cherbourg,” he shook his head in silent appreciation, “and he’s really been legging it to get that far so fast… we’ve had the better part of a half-hour head start.” The next shake of his head was one of displeasure. “That bastard isn’t on a search pattern either… he’d never have gotten this far already without having some idea of where to look.” He grimaced. “Looks like those ground radars did get a look at us as we shot past.”
“Can we evade…?”
“Maybe… maybe not,” Thorne shrugged, disengaging the autopilot and taking the F-35E even lower… as low as he dared at night without radar. “We might get away with it if we carry on as we are and stay on the treetops, but we’re running a very real risk of ploughing into something tall and hard that doesn’t have blinking red lights on top of it like they would in peaceful old ‘Realtime’. This Old Girl’s got night vision systems, but I’m not ashamed to admit I’m no expert flying that way, and if I miss spotting a smokestack or transmission tower, neither of us’ll know much about it until its way too late at this speed.” He gave a morbid chuckle. “Last thing going through our minds if that happens will be our own arses!” There was a thoughtful pause as Trumbull couldn’t help but grin at the man’s customary use of coarse figures of speech… something he seemed to have in common with the rest of the Australians in the unit to some extent.