Varner was stunned. “You are a traitor?”
“You could say Hitler and Himmler were the traitors and I’m just trying to save Germany. You could also say I’m simply trying to save my ass. I don’t care. I’ve been channeling information about the Rhine Wall, unit dispositions, and other bon mots to the Americans for more than a year now.”
“How?”
Shurmer laughed. “Simple. I have access to a good German army radio. I operate it at night when I have to. No clerk is going to deny me. Do you recall when I negotiated with the Americans regarding Paris? Well, it was then that I formalized the arrangement with their intelligence.”
Varner was still stunned. He looked at the paper. “I can’t take this,” he said and returned it.
“Fine. Then look forward to spending the next few years in an American prison camp while they try to figure out if you really were a war criminal and how many Jews you either killed or had killed as a result of your orders, actions, or inactions. Or have you forgotten that you are a general on the OKW staff, and that you actually conspired to hide the fact of Hitler’s death? Oh yes, and weren’t you close to Heisenberg and his blasphemous bomb? Be careful or they might actually think you are a war criminal, in which case you’ll never see the light of day or your family again.”
Schurmer again held out the paper. “With this, you won’t spend more than a couple of weeks in a POW camp. Besides, you did provide me with excellent information that aided the allies.”
“I did?”
Schurmer laughed. “You are such a noble ninny, Ernst. Don’t you remember the day you told me out of the blue that there were no more atomic bombs? That cleared the way for the Americans to cross the Rhine with that little problem taken care of. Now, what is it-prison or freedom to find your family?”
“I thought you were my friend.”
“Ernst, I’m the best friend you ever had.”
Varner nodded and put the piece of paper in his pocket.
It was time, thought Mastny, enough hiding in a barn and skulking. The Allies were nearby. He could hear the bombing and the artillery. He and the two others had to make their move soon or the opportunity would be lost. Once the Allies overran the farm, they would be nothing more than nameless, faceless refugees. They had to get the wealth they knew was hidden in the Mullers’ house ahead of their so-called liberation.
They stuffed oily, greasy rags into several buckets and placed them near the barn door. Mastny lit the fires and waited. Very quickly, black smoke began to billow and find its way out the door. Janis was the least stupid of the two Latvians. He understood the value of money. And pussy.
Janis ran from the barn screaming the obvious-
“Fire, fire!” He reached the bomb shelter’s hatch, pounded on it and continued yelling. A second later, it opened and Eric Muller bounded out followed by his wife. He turned and told the others not to follow them to the barn.
From the barn, Mastny could see the two women were armed and that was part of his plan. As Eric Muller ran towards the barn, Janis added that Victor was badly hurt. Muller’s expression didn’t change. He was concerned about the barn, not some damn workers.
Eric reached the door first and rushed in. Once inside and in the dark, he paused, puzzled. Mastny hit him in the side of the neck with a shovel, nearly decapitating him. His wife lurched in, out of breath, and Mastny dropped her with a blow to the side of her head.
Victor grabbed Eric’s shotgun while the Latvians took their pistols. They looked towards the house. Both the younger women were standing just outside the shelter, wondering what they should do. They had pistols, but they were safely tucked in their holsters.
“We need more help!” Victor shouted and nearly laughed when the two women raced toward him. A few feet from the barn, the three men stepped out, weapons pointing at the astonished women, who were too stunned to even think of their own guns.
CHAPTER 25
“Business before pleasure,” Victor proclaimed while the two Latvians laughed. Magda and Margarete lay on the ground by the house where they’d been overwhelmed before they could defend themselves. They were bound hand and foot by ropes from the barn. Their assailants did not bother with gags. Who would hear their screams? In fact, Victor and the others wanted to hear them scream.
Uncle Eric’s body had been dragged from the barn. He was clearly dead, but Bertha was breathing and moaning. Mastny wondered how long that would last. He didn’t care. The German bitch deserved to die. The other two women were guilty but less so. Still, their punishment would be severe.
First they put out the fires in the smoke pots in the barn. Even though fires were common, attracting unwanted attention made no sense. Then they ransacked the house. The sounds of furniture being smashed and walls being broken into carried down to Magda and Margarete. Mother and daughter lay side by side on the ground, still not quite comprehending the terrible turn of events.
The two women wiggled close to each other and tried to undo each other’s bonds to no avail. Margarete began to cry. “Will he kill us?”
Even though there were three men, it was Mastny who was clearly in charge. Magda had no idea what lay before them. Perhaps it would only be rape, which they could survive as so many thousands of German women were learning to their shame and agony.
“I don’t know,” she said to her daughter. They had discussed the terrible fate befalling German women who fell into the hands of the Russians, but they never believed it could happen in the gentle lands east of the Rhine. Magda, however, had told her daughter that she should endure an assault and not fight. One could recover from rape, at least physically, but not from death or mutilation.
Shots rang out from inside the house. The two women looked at each other in shock. A few moments later, Mastny walked out carrying a small bag. He held it up to them.
“I’m disappointed. This is all you people had in the way of jewelry and foreign money? Deutschmarks are going to be useless except to wipe your ass with when this war is over. Why didn’t the Mullers have any English or American money, or even Swiss?” He cackled. “Of course. They were good little Nazis, weren’t they? They put their faith in Hitler and look what it got them.”
He set the sack on the ground. “At least I won’t have to share this with those two fools.”
Magda and Margarete stared at him in horror. The gunshots were Mastny executing his two companions.
Mastny took out a large kitchen knife. “Now, this is going to be very simple. If either of you resists, I will use this knife to cut off the nose of the other one. We are going to do it in the dirt because you are German swine and a fuck in the dirt is all you are good for.”
With that, he carefully sliced Magda’s clothes off. He stared at her hungrily for a long moment and then stroked her breasts and thighs. He ignored the fact that she didn’t respond, merely stared at a point above him while Margarete sobbed and turned away so that she didn’t have to watch her mother being violated.
Mastny’s voice was husky with excitement. “Excellent. I’d fuck the old lady first, but she’s unconscious and would probably never realize it.” He knelt between Magda’s thighs and pushed them apart. “You don’t have to cooperate. Just lie there and do nothing like all German women do when they fuck.”
He mounted her and thrust inside her. Magda bit back a scream from the suddenness and pain of the assault. She would give him no reason to hurt her daughter.
Finished with Magda, he went to the barn to get his other possessions, the stolen goods he and the others had buried. “Yes,” he said to the women. “We took these from refugees and you were too stupid to realize what was happening underneath you noses.”