They were in a long subterranean bunker. The sweating cinder blocks receded at least two hundred meters away from them to a thick revetment of sandbags, in front of which stood three scarred wooden poles. The prisoners were actually much less skeletal than most of their fellow inmates. They were
These three, however, were to complete their service to the Reich as experimental subjects. Over their gray striped camp uniform each wore a bulky vest of a slightly differing size. The project director, whose name Brasch had forgotten, spoke excitedly of the leaps in development they’d achieved since being given access to a calculating machine and a trained operator.
“What we have now are three options,” he enthused. “Each is a trade-off, in its own way, Herr
Brasch was hardly listening. He was focused on the three men being tied to the poles at the other end of the bunker. Not one of them was struggling. He fancied he saw one of them sob, but that was about the extent of their reaction. As a man who had spent the better part of the last three years involved in mortal combat, often against the most overwhelming odds, he found it depressing that these men could go to their doom so meekly. Even more depressing, however, was the path his life had taken to deliver him to this place as a witness to their deaths. Since he’d arrived at Monovitz, the black wolf of his depression was stalking him again. He felt again as he had during the battles at Belgorod, like a bug about to be crushed under the tracks of a tiger tank.
“A good rifle, this Garand, yes?” Skorzeny said, interrupting his train of thought. The giant Nazi was turning a captured weapon over in his hands. “Better than the Tommy’s Lee Enfield piece of shit. Semiautomatic, gas actuated. A good tool, although I do not like the way it makes so much noise when the clip ejects. That will get a few cowboys killed, I think.”
“It may not be in use for much longer,” said Brasch in a flat monotone. “I believe they may be moving in the direction of an assault rifle.”
Himmler took the hankie away from his thin lips. “Don’t be so glum, Herr Colonel. The SD tells me that is not yet a foregone conclusion. There is open disagreement in America over whether to retool for mass production of that weapon. At least outside of the Californian Zone.”
“So Kolhammer is going to build these Russian guns for his mud people, then?” Skorzeny said. “I hear they are a good weapon, too. But in the hands of half-castes and fairies, what would it matter?”
“The bullet would kill you just as dead, no matter who fired it,” Brasch replied. “I lost many comrades to rounds fired by untrained
“Well, let’s see if we can do something about that,” bellowed the SS man, refusing to be cast out of his usual high spirits. “You are ready for us now?” he asked the research director.
The civilian checked with an aide, who confirmed that the prisoners were firmly secured. A horn blared harshly, and behind them a red lightbulb shut off while a green one lit up.
“We are ready for the test,” he confirmed.
Brasch screwed in a pair of earplugs and hardened his heart to what was about to happen. He had personally killed dozens of men, some of them in hand-to-hand combat, but he had never murdered anybody in cold blood. And he was about to become complicit in three murders at once. It made him sick.
Skorzeny looked to Himmler, who had just finished fitting his own earplugs. The
Again, the prisoners jumped, but their heads whipped back in a way that told Brasch they were already dead or unconscious.
Skorzeny was much less impressed with the English weapon. “Pah! You could not get great accuracy with this. The chamber is too loose, and the two-part stock and these rear-locking lugs on the bolt are all very poor design . . . And now for my old friend.”
He scooped up a K98 Mauser and squeezed off three shots from the bolt-action weapon with as little thought as he would give to scratching his nose. Three dark puffs indicated where the 7.92 mm rounds hit.
“Shall we?” asked the director.
