Grudge: Operation Highjump Page 18

  He checked his watch. There were only two hours until daylight, so if he was going to make the crossing, it needed to be done soon. Walking through the checkpoint would probably alert a lot of unwanted attention, especially since he had no papers of any kind. If he was stopped, they’d detain him immediately and then they’d quickly discover that he was a German paratrooper.

  That meant the checkpoint wasn’t a valid option, so that left the open fields on either side of the checkpoint. The US-Canadian border was thousands of miles long; he could simply begin walking in one direction and cross over at any point, away from watchful eyes.

  Gregory decided that’s what he’d do. He dug into his pack and fished out his canteen. He’d filled it from a cattle pond two days ago. Since then, he’d sipped at it sparingly, unknowing when he’d get another opportunity to fill the bottle. He shook it near his ear. It sounded empty.

  He unscrewed the cap and tilted it up into the air above his outstretched tongue. A few droplets fell into his mouth, but that was it. He was out of water.

  Gregory cursed his luck at being assigned an impossible mission. He’d trained his men hard, waking months before the regular Heer soldiers, and it was all for nothing. They’d not captured the launch facilities. Hell, he didn’t even know if they’d even seen the launch facilities or if they’d only encountered the security buildings. As far as he knew, he was the last fallschirmjäger in the entire Wehrmacht. The Americans were prepared for the attack—unlike what his superiors had estimated.

  The canteen went back into the pack and he rolled onto his hands and knees painfully, and then pushed himself up like an old man. He felt old. Too bad Schütze Markel was dead; Gregory could have used a quick injection of the serum to give him the energy to carry on.

  He glanced back at the Port of Entry building to ensure no one observed him. It was as quiet as it had been the entire time, so he plunged into the grass, walking roughly parallel to the barbed wire fence. The sound of his boots crushing the brown grass underfoot filled his ears.

  And yet… There was another noise echoing in his mind. It reminded him of something he’d heard before, but he couldn’t quite place it. He stopped and the sound seemed to magnify as it became the only noise to fill the night.

  It came from somewhere high above him in the pitch black sky. Something was up there. It was something familiar.

  “Scheisse!” he screeched. It was a drone, like they’d used at Bravo Flight. He was sure he’d been spotted.

  He turned and lumbered toward the Canadian border. The whir of the drone’s rotors became louder and he knew it was descending.

  Faster! Faster, you idiot! he chastised himself. He knew enough about international boundaries to know that if he could make it over the border he’d be safe. The Americans couldn’t do anything to him once he set foot in Canada.

  Shouts of alarm and the barking of dogs came from his left. He risked a quick glance. Flashlights bounced as men ran out of the building. It was more than seven.

  The drone sounded as if it were right behind him and then his body suddenly went rigid. He couldn’t stop himself from falling as electricity coursed through his body, causing his muscles to shake violently.

  He screamed in pain, embarrassed at his reaction. Then the feeling of being electrocuted stopped and he tried to sit up, but his body was slow to follow his commands.

  Dimly, he heard the dogs getting closer. He drew the pistol and crawled awkwardly toward the border. He’d been so close. If he could make it, they wouldn’t be able to do anything.

  A vicious growl was the only warning he had before canine teeth sank several inches into his calf muscle. The dog shook its head, tearing away flesh. Gregory screamed again and fired blindly into the darkness behind him.

  He was rewarded with a yelp and the filthy creature released him.

  Then another set of fangs closed around his wrist, crushing the bones there. The pistol tumbled away uselessly. The dog jerked him violently, causing him to fumble his recovery attempt for the weapon.

  Rough, angry voices filled the air as the bones in his wrist continued to be ground into jagged shards. The shape of a man appeared in the inky void above him and he had half a second to realize that the soldier’s arm was drawn back. Gregory threw up his free hand to shield himself.

  The blow fell quickly, smashing into the arm that wasn’t held by the dog. The border patrol agent repeatedly hammered his baton down on the paratrooper until the arm fell away and it connected solidly with his head.

  Oberleutnant Gregory Wagner, Fallschirmjäger Platoon Four commander, knew no more.

  SEVENTEEN

  14 July 2025

  Near Marine Corps Base Quantico, Triangle, Virginia

  “Driver, back!” Staff Sergeant Meyers shouted into the microphone on his helmet. “Gunner, identify.”

  “Tank, uh…hostile,” Sergeant Gaines said, unsure of what to call the giant vehicle they’d managed to ambush.

  “Load sabot,” Meyers said calmly. They’d rehearsed this thousands of times, shot hundreds of main gun rounds together. He wouldn’t let his crew hear the fear he felt at participating in the first tank-on-tank battle in over twenty years. If he got off a clean shot, they’d take the German tank right in the side. “Aim for where the turret meets the hull, Gunner.”

  “On the way!”

  The tank shook violently as the depleted uranium round shot out of the 120mm main gun of Meyers’ Abrams tank at 5,700 feet per second. The round impacted directly where Meyers had ordered Gaines to shoot, right in the weakest spot of any tank. Much is said about the engine compartment or the underside of tanks, but the area where the turret met the hull was thin metal by comparison.

  Smoke began to pour out of the hovertank’s turret as the inside of the German tank caught on fire. Within seconds, flames shot out of every possible opening and then the optics in the Abrams fuzzed out from a massive explosion that sent the turret flying several feet into the air.

  “Hot damn! Her rounds cooked off!”

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Gaines cheered.

  Meyers opened the hatch above his head, letting the fresh air pour into the cramped interior of the tank. “Keep an eye out, Gaines. I’m gonna go up and see what there is to see.”

  He pulled his body up onto the seat and stood with his upper body exposed. The Abrams’ optics were second to none, but he got tunnel vision looking through them. There was an entire world of danger around them, especially in the air above and the ground behind, where they were blind.

  They sat at the edge of a wood line, several feet back from the open area they’d prepared to cross when they identified the German tank. Their aerial overwatch, an Apache helicopter, flew overhead. He watched as rounds poured out of the 30mm cannon underneath the nose.

  He couldn’t see what they were firing at, but it was clear that they shot across the horizon instead of the ground. The helicopter juked straight up and began firing again. “What are they shooting at?” he wondered out loud.

  Meyers’ glasses were covered in specks of dirt. More likely, he corrected himself, overspray from my gunner’s spit bottle. He pulled them off and looked at the lenses. There didn’t seem to be anything on them, but he rubbed them on his coveralls just to be sure.

  When he put them back on, they were clear until he looked up at the helicopter. Black specks surrounded the bird and he realized what the Apache gunner had been firing at. “Drone swarm!” he shouted.

  “Huh?” Sergeant Gaines asked, opening his own hatch and popping up.

  Meyers pointed into the air around the helicopter just as several of the small, unmanned drones impacted against the rotor blades. The drones shattered under the immense power of the rotors, but more flew in, replacing those that were destroyed.

  The helicopter jerked hard to the side and the blades destabilized. Meyers watched in shock as one of the blades impacted against the fuselage, shearing the end of it off. One of the engines caught fire a
s the helicopter plummeted to the ground, hitting with a deadly crunching of metal and glass.

  “Holy shit!” Gaines shouted over the tank engine. “I can’t believe we just saw that.”

  “It was a drone swarm,” Meyers repeated into his helmet communications system. “They’ve been briefing us for years that an enemy could do something like that to bring down a helicopter or plane, but wow…that was quick.”

  A shadow darkened the ground at the edge of his vision and he tore his eyes from the sky. Something was out there. “Gunner, identify!” he shouted, dropping back into his tank to press his face against the sights.

  “Tank, 1,200 meters!” Gaines yelled back, already in position.

  Too late, the crew saw the massive German hovertank as it turned its turret toward them.

  “Driver, back!” Staff Sergeant Meyers managed to say. Then he tried to order the loader to chamber a round, but his mouth didn’t work. His brain registered a bright flash and then everything was gone.

  *****

  14 July 2025

  Anacostia, Washington, DC

  The sirens from passing emergency vehicles blared outside and gunfire rattled the ancient windows of the historic home where Gloria’s party holed up. They’d been set to leave the city when word filtered in to Deacon Johns that the Army was sending a unit into the city to extract the colonel. Devon convinced them to stay, that way they didn’t miss the soldiers on their journey south. Gloria agreed with him. Both she and James needed the extra rest, so it didn’t take a lot of convincing.

  That was yesterday.

  Overnight, the Germans launched a full out offensive into the neighborhoods of Anacostia with the intent of wiping out the resistance. Frederick retained his radio and warned Devon of the attack, earning him the eternal gratitude of the community organizer, who was able to set up a rapid defense against the Nazi forces at the river.

  Gloria pressed the power button on her cell phone, praying that the battery still had enough of a charge to turn on. It did, but after a few seconds, it was clear to her that the signals were still jammed, so she powered it off quickly. She wanted to tell her mother that she loved her one final time before the end.

  “Stop it,” James chastised.

  “Hmm?”

  “Stop thinking that we’re not going to make it,” he clarified. “You’ve tried your phone at least five times today. The damn battery is gonna wear out.”

  “I just want to say goodbye.”

  “You don’t need to. We’re gonna get through this and you’ll see her before you know it.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “This feels different. The Nazis are attacking on the ground—that hasn’t happened before.”

  “That’s because there wasn’t an organized resistance to attract their attention before. Devon and Psycho Shane have an army of men and women who are armed to the teeth and ready to fight for their homes.”

  “Be thankful the panzers have not come,” Colonel Albrecht grunted from the corner where he sat on the edge of a box.

  “Excuse me?” Gloria asked. She was already annoyed with the smug German. He rarely spoke, except when it was to praise the technology of the German Army and Air Force.

  “The panzers,” he repeated. “They are moving to the southwest in attack formation.” He held up the radio. “I have a few hours of battery life remaining. The panzers are—how do you say—knocking up the American armor.”

  Gloria suppressed a giggle, intent on being angry, but it eluded her attempts and came out anyways. “It’s ‘knocked out’. Knocking up means…well,” she pointed to her stomach.

  “Ah, it means with child. How silly I must sound,” Frederick said. “The reports are that the Americans are very good at setting traps and ambushes. When they attack a panzer from an ambush position, they can kill it—if the angles are right, of course. However, they are quickly destroyed by the panzer’s wingman.”

  More of the advances in German technology. Gloria stared at him, attempting to bore holes through his forehead. “How did your technology advance so rapidly? You guys couldn’t have had many resources locked away down there on Antarctica.”

  It was the German’s turn to flinch. “How do you know—Who are you? Do you work for the C-I-A?”

  She placed both of her hands on her hips. His elaborate pronunciation of the three letters infuriated her even more. “I don’t have to tell you a damn thing. Why don’t you start with telling me why you’re defecting? Are you planning on betraying us? How do we know that you’re not transmitting our location right now, or that you aren’t going to do so once we take you to the field headquarters? Maybe you’re a suicide bomber or something.”

  He chuckled and pointed to his own body. “Do you think we’d rely on such a frail old man to be a suicidal bomber? I think not.” He sighed and rubbed his palms on his thighs to clear away the sweat.

  “I am sentenced to death by our commander, Generalfeldmarschall Mueller.”

  “Why? What did you do?” James asked, coming into the conversation.

  Frederick glanced at him and then looked back at Gloria. “I am the commander of the 938th Training Brigade. For the past forty-three years, I have been training our soldiers to fight against the Americans, waiting for the day when our revenge would come. I—”

  Gloria interrupted him. “How did you feed all of those people? It must have been nearly impossible.”

  “Ah, but you see, there were never more than three hundred thousand or so awake at any given time.”

  “Awake?” James repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Our soldiers are divided into age groups and go through training together as a group. They are encouraged to breed with as many women as possible before their seventeenth year. When the age group turns seventeen, they go through a lottery. Less than one percent stay to become trainers, the remaining members of the age group are administered a regeneration serum and then cryogenically frozen, stored away in the deepest parts of the base until it’s time. Now they are all here, including the training brigade soldiers.”

  Gloria opened her mouth and then closed it. Was he attempting to fool her? He certainly looked serious. “I, uh… Are you being serious or are you joking?”

  “I am not joking, Miss Gloria,” he answered. “As a man who was not frozen, it is heartbreaking to see your friends and your children packed away when their time comes. I did my duty to the Reich, sacrificing everything, only to be told that because we have experienced setbacks that it is my fault due to ineffective training. What about poor leadership from that old fool, Mueller!”

  The German sprung up, surprisingly spry for an old man, and then leaned heavily against the wall. “I am the fool,” he wailed. “Six children. I have six children, all of whom are in the Wehrmacht. I attempted to seek them out, but only found two of them. They barely recognized me. I’ve aged so much without the regeneration serum.”

  “How did your scientists work through the problems of freezing and reanimating human beings?” James asked, obviously fascinated. “I mean, we’ve tried it with animals, but nothing makes it through without dying.”

  “The Aryan gave us the formulas, unlocked the secrets of regeneration and assisted with the design of our hovertanks, the düsenjägers, the shrouding devices that allowed us to arrive undetected… He’s advanced our technology by centuries.”

  Gloria’s mind reeled. The survivor from the crash in the Bavarian Alps in 1938. She remembered the day she met James in the Pentagon. She told him of the UFO crash in the Alps and he looked at her like she was insane. Now, this man was reinforcing her research. It was real.

  “I knew it! I knew the Aryan survived the crash. What else has he told you—more importantly, why?”

  “I am not certain, miss. The Aryan was helping German scientists long before I was born. The düsenjägers were an old technology by the time I was old enough to choose whether I would train as a Luftwaffe pilot, join the Heer, or, God forbid, the Krieg
smarine.”

  “He has to have a reason for doing it,” Gloria pressed. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. He and I had a falling out years ago. At the time, the bulk of the Wehrmacht was still frozen and I was the highest ranking officer not sleeping. I wanted to know the same things you’re asking, but he refused to tell me, publicly questioning my loyalty to the Reich.”

  “So you accepted help from someone you know nothing about?”

  The German stared at his feet, whether in contemplation or embarrassment, Gloria wasn’t sure. “Yes,” he answered after some time. “The Führer trusted the Aryan completely and Generalfeldmarschall Mueller was his man. So, the Reich listened to him, following his designs and recommendations for weaponry and medical advancements—allegedly based on what he could remember from his own society.”

  Gloria nodded. It didn’t seem to be Colonel Albrecht’s fault that they blindly followed the Aryan. “I’m sorry if this is difficult for you—”

  A loud explosion nearby made everyone jump. Little Phelisha screamed and ran over from where she’d sat coloring to bury her face in Gloria’s armpit. Automatic weapons fire responded to the explosion.

  Frederick tilted his head, listening. “Those are MG98s—the machine guns that our heavy weapons platoons carry. They sound much closer than they were previously.”

  Gloria looked to her husband. “Should we try to get out of the city before we get surrounded again?”

  “I think we’re probably better off staying put in here,” he answered. “We’re underground, for the most part. Even if we were to get searched, there’s nothing linking us to the resistance.”

  “Except him,” Gloria replied, pointing at the German.

  “Except him,” James acknowledged.

  She thought about it a little longer and decided it was best to stay put. James couldn’t run and hide like everyone else if the Nazis came close and they were immeasurably more safe underground in the basement.