Stalemate (The Red Gambit Series) (40 page)

His testicles were dropped onto his chest.

“These will feed the pigs at Lerner’s farm.”

The blood loss was now becoming critical, and Savitch started to drift off.

Greta Knocke spoke into his ear.

“And now
, for every time your cock has penetrated me, I penetrate you.”

The tip of the blade probed the awful wound between his legs, the pain stimulating him into consciousness once more.

The next time it entered his body was through his navel, the penetration limited to no more than a centimetre, not enough to kill in its own right, but sufficient to cause extreme pain.

Shandruk and Kuibida watched as the naked woman worked the blade all over the Russian
’s body, shocked, but aware enough to know that the woman needed the few moments to do what she had to do.

Greta slid the knife into Savitch’s left armpit, not noticing that the eyes had glazed
, and the blood no longer flowed.

Shandruk took hold of her hand
firmly, and removed the blade, passing it back to his NCO in silence.

Greta Knocke stood, unashamed of her nakedness, looking down on the piece of dirt that had threatened to rape her two daughters unless she became his mistress.

She spat venomously, missing the corpse, but discharging more of her angst.

Shandruk held out some clothes and turned around as Greta put them on.

A shot made all three jump.

Downstairs, an unseen sentry had been drawn back to the Gasthaus by the scream from the dying Savitch. On seeing the hated SS in the downstairs room, he had fired through the window, killing one of the SS men instantly.

Shandruk clicked his fingers at Kuibida, sending him down to investigate, the sound being sufficient to mask the clack-clack as a Sten gun put the sentry down.

“Frau Knocke, we have no time to lose. Please g
ive me that,” he indicated the opal necklace she always wore, a treasured wedding present from her parents, “Now, please go with this man, and bring your children downstairs. We must leave very soon.”

The woman took it in her stride, something that he was not surprised about
, given her pedigree.

A
firefight erupted outside, the covering sections becoming swiftly engaged.

Three rapid explosions marked the end of the venerable armoured cars.
Although old and out of place on a modern battlefield, they had been considered a threat to the raiding force.

Spurred by the closeness of the combat, Shandruk moved swiftly, shouting his encouragement to the two men organising the girls.

Once downstairs, he set the subterfuge in motion.

The three female bodies were taken upstairs and placed in the correct rooms, the two girls,
recently carefree Swedish school children, had died because they ate the wrong sort of mushrooms. They were to replace Knocke’s daughters and Shandruk’s team set them in place with suitable reverence.

In the next room
the adult corpse was put in place; a librarian, who had just dropped dead next to the classics section at her place of work.

A change of plan was necessary,
requiring a more creative ‘set’. A knife was slipped into the hand of Elisabet Hägglund, spinster, former employee of the Gothenburg University Library.

The necklace followed, garish against the milky white and lifeless skin.

The substitutions complete, the group moved off, their dead comrade dragged clear, in order to preserve the evidence of his uniform and corpse. They had all understood the risks. Uniform scraps had been prepared, had there been no casualties. However, a comrade had fallen, and they were prepared to leave him behind; a necessary evil that they had planned for, and reluctantly accepted.

The last three soldiers, now relieved of their dead female
burdens, set fire to the old Gasthaus, before joining the rear of the group.

Kuibida, breathing heavily, slid in beside Shandruk.

“The ‘42 has butchered the bastards. They came out straight into the line of fire. All down, from what I can see. Be careful, in case any are just wounded. The Vampirs have been firing round the back too.”

“Our route out?”

“Clear, as far as I can see, Sturmbannfuhrer.”

The
Major’s rank was an acknowledgement of Shandruk’s worth to OSS, a personal recommendation by Rossiter himself.

The
Ukrainian officer slapped his senior NCO heartily.

“Move them up then
, Oberscharfuhrer. Back to the spinning tops as quickly as we can.”

It was as good a name as any for the strange machines
that had brought them to Fischafen.

The
rescue party rose up and moved off, each of the Knocke females having a personal escort, either to steer them, support them, calm them, or to get their bodies between the rescued and the bullets, whichever was needed.

The MG42 team remained vigilant
, as the main group slipped across their line of fire, the loader commencing the countdown for their own withdrawal.

The Vampir gunners saw the group first, and watched for signs of pursuit. There were none,
as they and the machine-gun team had been extremely effective in subduing the NKVD guard unit.

There was no sign of the tanks, nor of the Maxim machine-guns.

Gehlen had managed to organise a demonstration at Baltiysk to the south, and all four T34’s had been sent to assist the local forces.

One of the Maxim mounts lay to the north, covering the most obvious approach. The second was situated to the south-west, its dual purpose to guard the air approach from that direction as well as to serve as a
guard post on the shoreline.

The third was thirty feet in front of the main body of
Ukrainians.

“Stoi!”

A frightened voice screamed the order, immediately freezing the Ukrainian veterans.

Shandruk thought quickly
, and acted.

“Silence
, you fucking fool! Do you want the German bastards to know where we are?”

A moment’s pause indicated swift thought on the part of the owner of the voice in the dark.

Quieter this time.

“Password!”

“I’ll give you fucking password, you idiot. Now shut your fucking mouth or Savitch will have your ass!”

The use of the Major’s name did the trick, and the sullen soldier dropped back into the sandbagged position again, happy that he had done his duty, unhappy that the loudmouth officer had embarrassed him in front of the female loader.

The clacking sound reached his ears as the young girl sprouted red stars all over her body, his own blood joining hers as Shandruk’s Sten switched targets.

Moving quickly past the AA position, Pöllman loomed out of the darkness.

“All clear through to the landing zone.”

“Danke
, mein freund.”

Shandruk surrendered a precious moment to shake the hand of the elderly man who had risked so much to make the mission a success.

No more was said, Pöllman stepping aside to let the group move on quickly.

As they approached the nearest Achgelis, those with
German Army torches switched them on, the red lenses identifying them as friends.

Greta Knocke insisted on seeing
both her daughters aboard their craft, partly to reassure them, and partly to reassure herself.

Behind them, things started to go wrong.

For once, Shandruk had not been the efficient killer.

Regaining consciousness, the wounded
Soviet gunner pulled himself up, using the Maxim mount for handholds, the pain causing him to nearly pass out.

Crucially, he made no sound.

In the clearing beyond, the Achgelis helicopters started up, warming their engines ready for the flight home.

Red torchlight flitted through the bushes and undergrowth
, as the wounded gunner squinted in the direction of the noise.

Pöllma
n moved, revealing his position.

Startled, the wounded gunner pressed his triggers
, and the Maxims burst into life.

The retired police officer was killed immediately, his upper chest,
shoulders, and head struck numerous times by the 7.62mm bullets.

Through the bushes, one red light went spinning away as it was struck by more lead, the impacts sending it into the air
, and throwing its dying owner to the earth.

One more burst was fired into the clearing, a few bullets striking one of the Achgelis
, but causing no great damage.

Three bullets hit flesh.

The MG42 gunner acted quickly. The grenade was in his hand almost as swiftly as the thought spurred him into action. Retiring late, along with the Vampir gunners, he heard the sound of the AA gun, and knew it had to be stopped quickly.

The stick grenade struck the nearest water-cooled barrel
, and dropped into the lap of the dead female loader.

It exploded,
the blast throwing up a crimson spray, noticeable, even in the darkness.

Again, the gunner escaped death, but it was purely temporary.

His spine was severed, and he dropped lifelessly into the gun pit, his pain gone. He had no understanding that his lifeblood was draining from his shattered legs and ruptured buttocks.

The last four SS raiders moved into the clearing.

Shandruk’s wrist was on fire, a single bullet having nicked it on its way through the clearing.

It was just a scratch, but one that reminded him of its presence every second.

But, for now, he had other serious concerns.

Greta Knocke lay at his feet, her lifeless eyes slowly being obscured by blood seeping from the horrendous facial wound. The unforgiving bullet had then blown the back of her head off.

A second bullet had struck her in the abdomen, but she was already dead by the time it had exited from the small of her back.

“Blyad!”

No time for remorse or ceremony, Shandruk and one of the Vampirs grabbed the corpse, and bundled it into the waiting Achgelis, following Greta Knocke into the interior as the helicopter took off, the third to rise from the field,

Below them, Fischausen was
awake and petrified, the remaining civilians, woken by gunfire, aware that buildings were burning and that men had died in the night.

The last of the Achgelis’ touched down and switched off, plunging the base into an uncanny silence, punctuated only by the sobs of young girls coming to terms with the death of their mother.

Törget
was there to meet the special force, and to welcome the Knocke’s to Sweden.

Confronted by the grief of two inconsolable girls, Per
Törget found himself out of his depth for the first time in his life. His decision to bring a female doctor and nurse rescued him, and the two girls were gently lead away by the two medics.

Quickly discussing the mission with Shandruk, he discovered that it was the finger of fate that had reached out and touched Greta Knocke that night, and that nothing could have been done.

Moving away, and leaving Shandruk to tend to his men, Törget entered the communications centre, where the operator sat ready to send his pre-arranged signal, seemingly a routine military base report.

He
accepted the change to the signal without thought, not understanding that those who received his transmission would see the report of a generator problem as a mission failure.

“SS bastards?”

“It seems so
, Comrade Polkovnik.”

The Army Major beckoned forward three of his men carrying a blanket, heavy with some inert load.

They spilled the contents at the feet of NKVD Colonel Bakhatin, roused from the comfort of his lodgings in Königsberg to travel to Fischausen and investigate the disaster.

GRU Colonel Witte had travelled the same road, only minutes behind, similarly tasked.

Both men examined the corpse of a man clad in SS camouflage uniform, a single gunshot wound in the throat, the cause of his death, now mainly obscured by the beating his corpse had sustained at the hands of vengeful NKVD security troops.

Another blanket arrived, bearing the shattered body of the local police officer.

“It seems that he wandered into the firing line of one of the AA mounts. However, we have found police fire buckets set out in a pattern on the field to the east of the village, so it is possible he is not the innocent that we believed him to be.”