108
Nordhausen
Germany
AS THE SUN FELL over this province in central Germany, an armored truck drove away from a munitions plant, headed for the train station, where the explosives and armaments would be unloaded and transported to German troops in occupied France.
The driver and his passenger, both corporals in the German Army, took a special route, a narrow road through the woods that was closed to civilian traffic and provided direct access to the airport. The road was dark and winding, but without other cars, the transit truck made good time.
Until, that is, the driver saw something on the road up ahead.
He slowed the vehicle as he approached, his headlights capturing a fallen beech tree that blocked the road.
The driver quickly determined that he could not drive around the obstruction, given the sloping shoulder on each side of the road.
Which was precisely why Bauer and von der Haas had chosen that spot to cut down a tree.
Bauer, lying flat on a hill sixty yards away, looked through the telescopic sight of his Kar 98K, an upgrade over the sniper rifle he had left behind in Nuremberg—and this one had a suppressor to minimize the sound of gunfire, too.
Bauer watched the two officers step cautiously out of the truck. And he watched as two more officers spilled out from the rear.
“Four,” von der Haas whispered, lying next to Bauer, looking through binoculars. “Damn.” They had hoped there wouldn’t be guards in the truck’s rear by the armaments. Two soldiers would be easy to overtake without violence. Four would be bloody.
The four officers, each clutching an MG42, a light machine gun, looked around. It would not take them long to realize that the tree blocking their passage had been cleanly cut, an act of man, not of nature. Which would mean only one thing to the officers—an ambush.
The officers turned toward the dark woods that surrounded them and sprayed gunfire, a precautionary tactic.
Smart, but it gave Bauer an opportunity.
During the five-second rat-a-tat-tat cacophony created by the automatic fire, Bauer squeezed the trigger and hit one of the rear officers square in the cheek.
By the time the officers had finished spraying the forest with gunfire, Bauer had cycled the bolt on his Kar 98K and chambered the next round.
His second shot hit the other rear officer just below his eye.
The two front officers, closer to the fallen tree and thus to Bauer, did not seem to hear either rifle shot, but they quickly noticed their fallen comrades.
Still, with the officers already lying dead, the front officers could not tell from which direction Bauer’s shots had come.
So they sprayed more machine-gun fire wildly into the woods while Bauer dropped another officer—a third consecutive head shot.
Bauer cycled the bolt, chambered another round, and trained his weapon on the fourth and final officer. His index finger had begun to depress the trigger when he saw the officer drop his automatic weapon and pop his hands in the air.
Bauer breathed out and moved his finger from the trigger. “Go,” he told von der Haas.
Erich von der Haas, a pistol in his hand that both he and Bauer hoped he would not have to use, went down the hill and approached the surrendering officer. He tied his hands behind his back with rope and ordered him to his knees.
Only then did Bauer climb down the hill and reach the ambush site. The officer, fresh-faced and trembling, looked hardly old enough to enlist. “Relax, kid. Nobody’s gonna kill you.” Bauer patted him on the shoulder. “What’s in the truck? Plastics? Grenades? Launchers? Eight-millimeter Mausers?”
The officer drew a long breath, trying to calm himself. “All of that.” He shook his head and blinked away tears. “Just shoot me. I can’t go back. Not like this.”
Bauer understood. The other three were dead, and this kid didn’t have a scratch on him. It would be hard to tell a story that didn’t end with this officer looking like a coward. The Nazis had executed soldiers for less.
“You should run,” said Bauer. “You’re on the wrong side of this war, kid.”
The kid looked up at Bauer. “Did you serve? In the Imperial Army?”
“I did, yeah.”
“Did you think you were on the right side?”
Bauer chuckled. It was a nice comeback. The truth was, when Bauer fought in the first world war, he’d never felt qualified to decide which side was right and which was wrong. He was a patriot, so he fought for his country. It was as simple as that.
This war was different. The Nazis were different. But this kid had been indoctrinated with so much Nazi propaganda growing up, it wasn’t worth a debate.
“Last chance,” said Bauer.
“I can’t desert. You know what they do to deserters.”
“Okay, kid. Then close your eyes.”
The soldier whispered something, a prayer probably, and closed his eyes.
Bauer reared back, flipped around his sniper rifle, and cracked the kid across the face with the butt. The young officer fell sideways to the ground, unconscious. It would leave a nasty scar and ample swelling.
“What are you doing?” asked von der Haas, hustling toward Bauer.
“Giving him a story,” said Bauer. “Let’s unload this stuff and get out of here.”