“Come on, get a move on!” Bremen barked.
The march down the dark, damp halls took a little under seven minutes. Bremen reached the steps to his escape out of breath and fighting for air. They could hear the distant echo of the steel doors behind them being pummelled by the chasing troops. A flight of stairs was now the only thing between them and freedom. It led to more steel doors, but this time, they were directly above their heads. The clone guards nodded to one another and put their backs into the doors, pushing them up and to the side, leaving a clear exit to the fields above them.
The sun was blinding, and as the men emerged in the light of day, the clones took cover, pulling Bremen to the ground with them. Three cars had taken up position on the road just a hundred metres to the right. Waiting for the group, their drivers were standing beside the vehicles, each accompanied by a clone soldier. Both the drivers and the clones held their hands above their heads. Two Apache helicopters hovered above them and behind the cars as a loudspeaker boomed out orders.
“Put your weapons on the ground and your hands above your heads!”
There was no use in fighting. Bremen immediately complied, returning to his feet, hands above his head. The clones adopted another policy, opening fire on the helicopters, their colleagues and drivers immediately following suit. As the last two clones escaped the confines of the base, they put their submissive commander to the ground with a rugby tackle. The Apaches backed up, dodging the hail of bullets from the clones’ semi-automatic weapons before opening fire themselves. The M230 chain gun mounted under the helicopter’s nose sprayed the field with 625 rounds of thirty-millimetre ammunition per minute. Bursting through the waiting cars and then churning the soft turf and grass of the field, the steady stream of death worked its unerring path in the direction of the small group of men.
“You idiots!” Bremen screamed, spinning around and trying to get back to the exit of the base.
Five bullets hit him almost simultaneously, lifting him off his feet like a puppet, before dumping him down the waiting stairwell. He landed at the foot of the stairs, nearly colliding with the Austrian troops who had arrived at the base’s exit. Dead eyes stared up at them, a body twisted and broken at their feet. In the field, the clones had fared no better, having been hit by a hail of fire with no chance of escape. The certainty of their demise left them without choices, and they found themselves waiting for the impact of the bullets. They watched as the ground in front of them heaved and spat dirt into the air. That spectacle and the drumming in their ears as the bullets battered the soil could hardly prepare them for the force that would hit, and they were not to be disappointed by the violence of their deaths. Knocked onto their backs in the grass, they watched each other’s bodies dance to the music of the machine guns. Small fountains of blood and flesh sprayed into the air blocking their view. The white puffy Austrian clouds slowly rolled across the light blue sky, as they submitted to their fate. The rumble and crack of weapons fire ceased, and quiet fell on the meadow. A single Admiral butterfly fluttered past one clone’s face, hovering as if to assess his injuries before disappearing from view as his heavy chest rose and fell for the last time.
46
Günther Müller had found the same files on an SD card in one of Britt Peterson’s Nikon cameras as had been found on the Swarovski USB stick.
Britt was a very clever lady, he thought as he scrolled through the card’s contents on his computer screen. Without her, the world would have been in a real mess right now.
It read like something from a science fiction movie. Britt had put together a comprehensive piece of work. Starting with a detailed history of Meyer-Hofmann’s creation at the end of the second world war. The file had been put together chronologically, starting with Professor Furtner’s original notes and a description of the ‘resurrection process’. Then came a list of the young women from the insemination program, accompanied by medical records and Furtner’s scribbled notes next to each mother’s name. That had all taken place at an Army Hospital close to Nuremberg in Southern Germany, and it was there that the children came into the world. The first two years of their lives had been catalogued in detail. Blood types, hair colour, physical markings, and even a rudimentary DNA test had been run on the children. Furtner had even attempted to describe how the children may look in five, ten, and fifteen years. The foster families were spread around the world and rarely in allied countries. From South America to Asia, it must have been a massive logistical problem at a time of war. Even more amazing was the network of safe houses, sleepers, and spies they had used to move the children.
If the allies had got their hands on this at the time…
The report ended with their reworked agenda and plans for a Fourth Reich. She had pieced together their influence in leading companies, as well as their broad recruitment of public figures.
Each member of the board had a personal family tree, linking them to their father or grandfather in the Third Reich. It tracked the Meyer-Hofmann children’s journey across the world as well as their indubitable return to the Fatherland.
You have to marvel at human ingenuity, he thought, shaking his head.
Meyer-Hofmann had seen itself as above the law, and its list of offences covered all serious crimes. Rape, murder, bribery, embezzlement, kidnapping, tax evasion, fraud, burglary, obstruction of justice, and, of course, treason at the top of the list.
What greater crime could you commit against your country than these men had committed? Twice!
Britt Petersen had documented them all. It had not taken long after the contents of the USB stick were passed to Interpol for the world to react. Meyer-Hofmann’s assets had been frozen, and their management taken into custody. Many, including Fredrik Petersen, were now being held in prison cells around the globe. He was, however, one of the few board members who would spend any time behind bars. The clean up job had caused the death of many of the others. It had been an amazing feat, to convince and coordinate a response from Governments as diverse as Israel and Iran. The assaults had been simultaneous and global. As the offices of HRH were being searched in New York, the Austrian Army was assaulting Meyer-Hofmann’s headquarters in Ellmau. Iranian forces had taken out all Meyer-Hofmann units on their territory and local militia carried out the clean up in Syria, Egypt, and the Lebanon. Snipers and their spotters were arrested in London, Berlin, Rome, and Paris. Over two hundred politicians had been taken into custody. More than five hundred people in public service would be questioned in the coming weeks and months. The majority lived and worked in Europe, and it was a sad indictment of a proud Europe’s true morality.
The only loose note was the disappearance of Dr Ecker and his son, both of whom had evaded the forces in Austria. Günther was sure that it was only a matter of time before they were captured, but they were an unwanted loose end after an otherwise successful operation.