North Reich (57 page)

      
Jed Munro still grieved for his brothers, Wally and Paul.
 
Even though the two men’s killers had themselves died, he felt the pain of their dying.
 
The manner of his brothers’ deaths had further complicated his life as well as those remaining members of the Black Shirts.
 
What had been a force of several hundred now counted only about fifty and that was a floating and declining figure.
 
The soldier they’d killed in the U.S. was no longer anything to worry about, but Jed’s shooting of the Toronto cop was a different matter.
 
The Toronto police wanted to talk with him and the others who’d participated in the restaurant attack, and neither Jed nor the others wanted to be interrogated by the cops.

      
Thus, Neumann had strongly suggested that they take up residence at the Gestapo farm north of the city.
 
Munro was uneasy with that.
 
It was the place where he had raped and tormented the Bradford girl and that death was the cause of his brother Wally’s being killed by her cop father.

      
They were all safe inside the compound – bored, but safe.
 
The cops wouldn’t touch them.
 
The police wanted to kill them, but they were not about to take on the Gestapo detachment along with any German regulars that might be sent to reinforce them.
 
No, the police had their hands full with the refugees who were clogging the roads and sleeping in the streets and parks.
 
Some of them were even committing petty crimes in order to get food and shelter.
 

      
Even though Jed considered these to be dark days, he was still confident that Germany would prevail and that he and his men would wind up on top.
 
And if Germany was defeated, hell, he would head west, change his name, and get lost.
 
There would be more than enough chaos to hide him.
 
He’d even gotten some phony ID from a local forger.

      
“We’ve got to do something,” he announced to his new best friend, Bruce.
 
Bruce was tall, lean and dark haired.
 
He wasn’t very bright, but he didn’t have to be.
 
He let others do his thinking and his job was to be the enforcer.
 
Like Jed, he too was bored.

      
“So what do you have in mind?”

      
Jed laughed, “There are a hell of a lot of so-called refugees clogging the roads.
 
I’ll bet you we can find a bunch and work them over, and that includes giving their women a big fat treat.”

      
“Great, but will Neumann let us leave here?”

      
“We’re guests, not prisoners, Bruce.
 
There are no hooks in our asses.
 
We can go anytime we wish.”

      
That night Jed gathered a score of men into trucks and drove off the compound.
 
This time they were all armed.
 
If they ran into resistance they would shoot their way out.
 
They did not wear their black shirts.

They didn’t have to go far before they began to see clusters of people gathered around the roads.
 
Some of the groups were quite large, with Red Cross and church groups helping out.
 
Smaller groups were often too close to other groups and would likely assist each other if trouble broke out.
 
All of these were off-limits.

He was beginning to get discouraged, but they finally spotted a group of thirty or so with, he exulted, a number of women.
 
He didn’t care about their ages, he just wanted a fuck.

Foolishly, this group had separated itself from the main body.
 
They were in a church parking lot a couple of hundred yards off the road.
 
Jed didn’t think the separation had been intentional, just one of those things.
 
They drove past and parked along the road, just out of sight of the group.
 
Nobody seemed to notice.
 
Most of the group looked like they were asleep.
 
A few people were gathered around a dying campfire.
 
They got to within a few yards before anyone noticed and, even then, nobody sounded any alarm.
 

“Police,” Jed announced.
 
The refugees stirred and were puzzled.
 
“Everybody, kneel down and hands on top of your heads.”

Like confused children, they did as told.
 
Jed’s men moved quickly through them, tying them and sticking cloths in their mouths.
 
By now, the refugees realized that the intruders weren’t cops, but it was far too late.
 

First, they looted the wallets and purses and then went through luggage for valuables.
 
They gathered a significant amount of cash and jewelry.
 
The refugees had taken all their wealth that they could carry.

“Fun time,” Jed announced.
 
As leader, he had first choice and he selected a young brunette who looked like she was maybe twenty.
 
His men selected others in order of their seniority with the Shirts.
 
A couple of junior Shirts had to wait their turn since there just weren’t enough women to go around.

Jed ripped the woman’s clothes off and punched her in the face when she tried to resist.
 
She had a nice slender figure, although her breasts were on the small side, and she was probably younger than he thought.
 
Tough, he thought and punched her again when she tried to wrestle away.
 
She went limp and let him do what he wished.
 
The entire mass rape took less than half an hour.
 
A couple of the guys wanted seconds, but he said no.
 
Sooner or later someone would come down that road and spread the alarm.
 

They piled into the trucks and drove back to the farm.
 
The refugees would soon get free and someone would run for help.
 
Police might ask if anyone had gotten a license number, but these had been obscured by tape.
 
The cops might suspect them, but they had no proof and bigger things to worry about, like a war.

They made it back to the farm without incident.
 
It was time to drink beer and discuss their success.
 
They knew it probably wouldn’t happen again and might have been the last hurrah of the Black Shirts.
 

Heil Hitler.

Heinz Guderian had known that an American attack was inevitable. Even a complete fool understood that.
 
The only question was when and where.
 
Ontario was larger than many European countries, but the strategic area was focused around Toronto.
 
Still, even that was too large an area to defend.
 

      
He had divided his army into three groups and grandly designated them as Army Fronts.
 
Army Front West was commanded by General Erhard Raus and had originally run along the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers.
 
His task was to delay the approach of the Americans led by Patton and he’d been doing a marvelous job of it.
 
The Americans were advancing steadily, but paying a steep blood price for it.

      
Army Front South was commanded by General Felix Steiner.
 
Even though he was an SS general and a favorite of Hitler’s, Guderian didn’t hold that against him.
 
He was a tough and capable general who had built a defense in depth along the Niagara River.
 
Those defenses were being battered by American artillery and all indications were that the U.S. would launch an attempt to establish a bridgehead and follow up with pontoon bridges.
 

      
Guderian had not dismissed the possibility of an amphibious assault.
 
He just hadn’t had the resources to defend the entire lengthy lake frontage.

      
He concluded that the American attack at Port Maitland had been made at a good spot.
 
The Americans could strike inland and then either hit north at Toronto or south towards the Niagara River.
 
Either would make him shift major portions of his forces, perhaps even causing him to lose the Niagara Front.

      
But he had not considered inaction by the Americans.
 
By now he was used to the steady clawing of Patton’s army, which was gradually wearing down Raus’s forces.
 
But the Americans, after landing what were at least two divisions, had dug in and appeared to be waiting for something to happen.
 
Well, he laughed, he would oblige them.
 
Three divisions from his meager third group, his reserves, were
en route
to this Port Maitland area.
 
He would form them into a classic spear point and smash into the Americans.
 
He would split the American army into two and drive to the lake.
 
They would cause panic and, with only a little luck, the Americans would withdraw, licking their wounds.
 

His patrols had located divisional boundaries and he knew they were the enemy’s weakest points.
 
If he could wedge his men between the American divisions, he could drive on to Lake Erie and, just perhaps, roll up the Americans.
 
He might not destroy them, but he could and would give them a terribly bloody nose.
 
The idea of marching several thousand American prisoners through the streets of Toronto was intoxicating.
 
The Fuhrer would love it if he could only get the pictures out.
 
Perhaps the Fuhrer would finally realize that Heinz Guderian was among the best generals the Reich had, if not the best.
 

Certainly, he was better than that ass von Paulus who was just about to throw away all of Germany’s victories in Russia.

He turned to his staff.
 
“Steiner will be informed that he is to focus on the American armies to his front and ignore the American beachhead to his rear.
 
We will attack the American beachhead and I will command that attack.”

He turned to Koenig who had been listening intently.
 
“Captain, you will fly me to St Catharines where I will set up my headquarters and we will proceed from there.”

Koenig grinned with pleasure.
 
It was good to have a commander who was decisive and skillful.
 
The Americans were going to pay.
 
Maybe he would finally get promoted.

Landry watched with dismay as the columns of German tanks and trucks rumbled through the night and past his position.
 
They were clearly
en route
to the American beachhead.
 
Fortunately, his men were hidden and the Germans had bigger game on their minds than looking for his small detachment.

At least we can warn the beachhead that bad things are coming quickly, he thought.
 
He had that sad fact radioed to III Corps and was told to stand fast and keep track of things.
 
Since that was what he’d already planned, he concurred.
 
They were well behind German lines, which severely limited his options.
 
He thought they could make it back to American lines fairly easily, but what would that accomplish?
 
Word was that the beachhead was jammed asshole to asshole with GIs, so what would that accomplish?
 
Besides, Rangers were not trained to fight like front line soldiers, although they could if they had to.
 
No, they’d been designed to be sneaky bastards who gave the enemy fits all disproportionate to their numbers.

He called his lieutenants and platoon sergeants around him and told them his rough plans.
 
He also said that anyone who wanted to go to the beach was free to leave.
 
He wanted volunteers.
 
Landry was not surprised when he had one hundred per cent volunteers.
 

      
“So what’s the plan?” asked Sergeant Devin.
 
Devin was in his late thirties and had been in the army forever.
 
Thus, he was not impressed by a mere lieutenant even though he admitted that Landry had done a helluva job so far.

      
“Ever been in a car full of people when a wasp gets loose inside?
 
Even though each person in it is ten thousand times larger than the wasp, they all panic and start swatting at it.
 
Sometimes they get so excited by the silly beast that they get all carried away and the car crashes and everybody’s killed.
 
Of course, the wasp flies away wondering just what the hell all the fuss was about, while the cops and the mourning families wonder what caused the tragic accident.”

      
Lieutenant Jordan, the senior of the two lieutenants, laughed.
 
“Let me guess, we’re gonna be wasps.”