My Immortal The Vampires of Berlin (25 page)

“I hope you’re right about the Brandenburg airfield,” Axel said.

Wolf spit on the ground. “I’m not sure that I know what is right about anything anymore.”

Suddenly, Eva screamed! The men ducked and pointed their guns at the surrounding buildings as they tried to locate the source of the threat. A second later, the air was filled with the roar of a formation of Russian Yak-7 fighter planes. “Get inside!” Wolf yelled.

The men scrambled off the street and took cover in the ruins of
Café Leipzig
as the planes blazed a trail of destruction with their machine guns. When fighters flew off, the sounds of death from above were replaced by music.
The Blue Danube
.

Sebastian thought he was hearing things. He turned around and was stunned to see an older couple in formalwear dancing in the ruins of the café.

Wolf lifted the needle up from the record player. “You have to get out of here,” he told the pair. “It’s not safe.”

The well-dressed couple smiled and continued their dream-like dance in silence, as though they didn’t hear him. “The enemy will be here soon,” Wolf said forcefully. “You must leave.”

Finally, the woman responded. “
Café Leipzig
was everything to us; now it is gone forever. What you see around you is all that we have left of our hopes and dreams. This is the last dance that my husband and I will ever have in the ruins of our dreams. Please, leave us be,” she said.

Wolf put the needle down.

As the soldiers walked down the street,
The Blue Danube
resonated behind them. “We destroyed Germany,” Wolf said.

“We didn’t destroy anything,” Axel replied. “We were only following orders.”

“That’s horseshit! Millions of lives have been lost and families have been wiped out all over Europe. Countless national treasures and works of art have been lost forever. Through our selfish actions, we helped Hitler destroy Germany. We are responsible.”

“It’s
not
that simple.”

The music stopped. The silence that followed was broken by two gunshots from
Café Leipzig
.

“It
is
that simple,” Wolf replied.

58

Gestapo officer Günter Honaker stormed out of the ruins of
Café Leipzig
, his gun pointed right at Wolf. “Halt! Put your hands up!” he slurred. “Where is your goddamn unit?” Günter was drunk and trying to perform what his solemn duty to the
Führer;
the elimination of those who betrayed Germany in its darkest hour.

Wolf was in no mood to deal with Günter. “Where the hell do you think our unit is?” he asked. “It was annihilated as we carried out orders that were conceived in a loony bin. Our Panther was destroyed near Berlin Cathedral. Like our
Luftwaffe
friend here, we are the sole survivors of our unit.”

Günter would have none of it. “You are not survivors—you are deserters! You should be on the front lines, fighting for the Fatherland!”

Sebastian protectively stepped in front of the others. “Look around you, idiot,” he said. “There are no front lines in Berlin anymore. There is only survival, which is growing more and more difficult by the hour. Put the goddamn gun down and save your life.”

“Traitor! Put your hands up or I’ll blow your damn head off!” Günter shouted.

As the situation escalated, Heydrich suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He had been searching for Wolf and the others all night and he was not about to allow a derelict Gestapo officer to interfere with Operation Tristan. “Stand down! That’s an order,” he said.

Günter turned his gun on Heydrich. “To hell with your cowardly orders. I hang deserters!”

Heydrich smiled. Then he pulled out his
Luger
and shot Günter right between the eyes. The men had never seen anyone move so fast. The second surprise was Heydrich’s announcement that followed. “Major Kepler, I’ve been tracking you all night. You have proven quite difficult to find in this environment.”

Wolf was stunned. His mind raced with a thousand questions. “You’ve been tracking me? How is that possible? How do you even know who I am?”

“There is no time to explain Major, we have to go. The Russians are about to launch their final assault.”

As they spoke, a group of Hitler Youth rode past them, a
Panzerfaust
or two strapped to the front of each bicycle. Heydrich clicked his heels and gave the kids a sharp salute. Eva also raised her hand into the air, but as if to tell them to stop.

“Death to the Russians! Defend Berlin!” a freckled, red-haired kid shouted. A few other kids cheered as they furiously pedaled their bikes.

The children’s misguided enthusiasm saddened Wolf. They were acting like they were going outside for recess, but they had no idea what they were in for. “They’re going to die. They’re all going to die for nothing.”

“Keep your voice down, Major Kepler,” Heydrich replied. “Adolf Hitler himself ordered those children to attack the Russian positions. They will not survive this mission, but that doesn’t make their contribution any less valuable to the Reich. They are buying us time.”

“Buying us time for what?”

“To get you out of Berlin.”

59

Major Federov had received intelligence from recently captured prisoners that the Germans were about to launch a preemptive strike in his sector. In response, he carefully set up multiple kill zones in the street with his machine guns and anti-tank weapons. Any German units that were stupid enough to attack his position would pay a heavy price.

“Multiple targets!” a rooftop sniper shouted. “Multiple targets approaching fast!”

Federov jumped behind a wall of sandbags, picked up a pair of binoculars and scoured the street for any sign of the attackers. “Select targets! Fire on my command!”

Each soldier pointed his rifle or machine gun down the street and waited. Gunners slammed shells into the 57 mm anti-tank guns; they were bushwhackers prepared to rain death upon the enemy.

Federov watched the enemy approach. As the images in his field of view became clearer, he realized that the soldiers of the attacking force were just a bunch of kids.
The Nazis were using children as suicide troops!

He dropped the binoculars and ran in front of his troops waving his arms like a madman. The war was nearly over—he didn’t want it to end with the blood of children on his hands, despite what his own family had suffered in the brutal siege of Leningrad. “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot! They’re just kids!” he yelled.

His troops stared down their gun barrels as Federov picked up a megaphone and desperately tried his version of battlefield diplomacy. “Children!” he shouted in German. “Please put your weapons down and go home. The war is over—we don’t want to hurt you!”

The youths jumped off their bikes. For a fleeting moment, Federov thought that he had pulled off a minor diplomatic miracle. Then the red-haired kid raised his
Panzerfaust
and yelled “Heil Hitler!” That’s when Federov knew the situation was about to get ugly.

He dove behind sandbags as the shell swished through the air towards them.
Boom!
The explosion erupted right where he had been standing.

Federov got up quickly. His ears were ringing, but he wasn’t hurt. A private from Belarus hadn’t been so lucky, however. The sight of the blood shooting out of the mortally wounded young soldier’s thigh enraged him.

“Fire!” he screamed. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

The Russian soldiers opened up on the Hitler Youth with a vicious hailstorm of gunfire. When the bullets stopped flying, the street was littered with dead kids and bikes. Thinking of the similar fate of his own children, Major Federov fell to his knees and sobbed.

None of his men said a word.

60

General Chuikov looked at his watch. The Hero of Stalingrad had waited a very long time for this moment. In exactly seven minutes, the Soviet Red Army would launch its final assault on the
Reichstag
and Berlin city center.

Chuikov had every expectation that the Germans would fight back hard. His casualties would be substantial, but irrelevant. Stalin would order him to throw more men into the fight until the Nazis were crushed. A great deal of Russian blood would be spilled in Berlin, but the only thing that ultimately mattered was that the Nazis were defeated.