The Secret of Lions (29 page)

“Shut the door, Willem,” Bosworth said to me
as I entered the classroom.

I shut it and took a seat in one of the
empty desks. The room was an auditorium-style classroom. James
Bosworth stood on a platform in the center of the room. I sat in
the first row peering down at him.

“Willem, you’ve had several days to think
about our proposition. So what is your answer? Do you want to end
the nightmare?”

“What happens after?” I asked.

“What do you want?” Bosworth said.

I thought for a moment and said, “I want to
paint.”

“Fine. We will send you anywhere that you
want to go after this. Of course, Germany and Eastern Europe will
be off limits. You might want to consider going to the States. But
we will set it up so that you can paint. Although, you will need to
keep a low profile.”

“What is the first step?” I asked.

“First, we have to give you a code name,
something that will become your new name. Something that will
protect you. Something fearsome.

Not only is that how Beowulf keeps his
identity a secret; it is also how he is able to strike fear in the
hearts of his enemies. He has built a legend for himself,” James
Bosworth said.

“What name shall I have?” I asked.

“Black Lion. That’ll be your new name,”
Bosworth said.

“Black Lion,” I repeated.

85

I spent the next several semesters studying
at different universities throughout the U.K. Bosworth thought it
was safer for me to bounce from place to place, never becoming
complacent.

I never really got to know too many
people.

Every semester I had two courses of study.
One was art and art history. The other was military training in the
arts of killing, spying, and stealth.

Before I knew it, I had unofficially
graduated from all my courses.

The war had grown particularly nasty for
England. It had blossomed into a fully-fledged world war. I
couldn’t have graduated from my lessons at a better time. Most of
public life had been suspended due to the bombings.

Bosworth came one day to visit me at my
flat. I was living in Dublin at the time. He spent the night. We
stayed up late discussing his plans for me. And the next morning, I
was off.

I set out to make my way back to the world
that I had escaped: Berlin.

Chapter Twelve

The Killing Kind

Berlin, 1945

86

The city streets were empty except for the
secret police. They were hunting for Allied troops. They wore dark,
leather uniforms. They were the elite of the Nazi military. They
stormed through the streets.

Throughout the city, I heard the sounds of
gunshots and artillery fire. I heard heavy bombardment; the SS
still marched and shouted. I could hear their sounds echoing from
every alley and near the openings of every building on the street.
I felt sorry for them. They had been fooled by a madman, as I
had.

The sounds of a rhetoric-filled radio
broadcast emitted from numerous speakers set up all over Berlin.
The broadcast was a looped Nazi report that constantly updated the
citizens of the war with the current news of the invasion on their
soil. In addition, the broadcast spread false propaganda, making it
seem as though the Nazis were still holding their city. Not to
mention, the broadcast was a week old.

All of the sounds combined together and
floated through the night air and onto the rooftop of Ingrid
booksellers. This was the place I hid. It was a good sniper’s
position. I could see the secret government building across the
yard, through the trees. It was kept a secret from outsiders. Not
many people knew of its existence. I was not an outsider. It was
not a secret from me.

The fortified building had few windows. Two
lights emitted from them, one at the top floor, which was on the
second story. This room was above my range of sight. The second
light emanated from a room on the first floor. There were three men
in this room. Two of them were soldiers, and the third was a
decorated military officer.

The British had trained me well. I
recognized the officer as a general in the German forces. He was
not the target, a bonus maybe, but not the target.

I had come to embody the secret code name:
Black Lion. I was not just a sniper. I was a project. My training
was two years of intense combat and weapons courses. My past as a
British captive was erased. My school records were erased. I was
trained to kill, and I would have my chance.

And after months of hunting him, and trying
to get close again, I’d finally cornered the Führer, the fox. I had
tracked him to this station. I knew he was in that building
somewhere. I never actually saw him go in, but I knew he was
there.

My intel was good. The target would be in
hiding because his war was coming to an end. He was cornered.
Germany was on the brink of being conquered and the vultures were
lining up at the gate. Hitler’s closest allies were growing
mutinous toward their once beloved leader.

I had been perched on the roof of that
bookseller for nine hours. In training, my best time for waiting
was eight hours. I had gone over that time; soon it would be
affecting my actions. I was too tired, and it would end up costing
me. I had to give up my sniper rifle for a close encounter with
Hitler. The Führer was not going to come out onto the streets.

He must have been plotting an escape
plan,
I thought. But I could not see one. Cornering himself in
that bunker was suicide.

Instinctively, my eyes focused on a sudden
movement from down on the street in front of the building’s
entrance. A man stood there. I set my rifle’s sights on him.
Through the scope I saw there were actually two men.

They wore armbands embroidered with the
swastika symbol. After a moment of hesitation, I realized they were
Hitler’s private bodyguards. They wore black street clothing from
head to toe. They were the most elite soldiers he had. They were
armed with pistols, holstered under their left arms.

I recognized their guarding positions as one
the British had trained me to commit to memory. The two guards at
the door would have been easy for a sniper to kill. Yet, there were
also two more men standing post below my position. If I shot the
guards standing across the street then the men below the bookshop
would rush me on the roof. And more than likely the guards that
were with the Führer would be aware of the sniper’s presence. I
would have to find another way. I would have to move in for a
closer kill.

I wouldn’t have lived through a gunfight
with all of the bodyguards, not four at once. They were the best of
the best. And they had been guarding Hitler for much longer than I
had been an assassin. I was lucky to have lived through a gunfight
like that once before. I did not wish to press my luck. I would
have to infiltrate quickly and silently if I hoped to accomplish my
mission.

I set my rifle down on the roof and stood up
slowly so I would not arouse their attention. I could see the
lighted window from the second floor easier now that I was standing
tall. My eyes fell upon the back of a man’s head. I recognized him
immediately. It was Hitler. Quickly, I raised my rifle back up to a
firing position. Only seconds later his head vanished into the
room.

“Damn,” I whispered as I lined the gun’s
barrel with the window. I paused for a moment in case he stepped
back into my line of sight. It never happened.

I abandoned the rifle and walked to the back
edge of the roof. I dropped down into the alley behind the
bookstore. I pulled out my sidearm and screwed a silencer in place.
I had to find a way into the building.

The gun disappeared into my jacket. I pulled
out a dirty street cap. It matched the tattered, brown jacket and
gray trousers I wore. These clothes helped me to blend in as a
rugged street bum.

I knew the bodyguards probably had a man
posted on every possible entrance. I would have to find the most
vulnerable one.

I walked along the streets and into a
densely wooded area around Hitler’s hideout. I tried to stay out of
view. I made my way just a short distance from the back entrance.
Two guards were posted there. The back door was likely to be locked
and reinforced with steel.

That was why there were only two guards. I
studied this entrance and realized there were definitely only two
guards. Each was armed just like the ones in the front of the
building. I thought if I was lucky I could kill at least one of
them by surprise and maybe the other one before the man could get
off a shot, allowing me to keep the element of surprise.

If one of them fired his gun I was finished.
The sound would surely bring the other guards around to the back of
the building. I calculated I’d need only thirty to forty-five
seconds to break through the backdoor before the others were on me.
I would be dead if the second guard could not be killed fast
enough. It was unfortunate I did not have another handgun to
use.

The only option that I had was to use both
my gun and combat knife. It was located near the small of my back,
tucked into my belt. I unsheathed it and quickly thought of a plan.
I took the hilt of the knife and stood near the edge of the bunker.
With my back to the wall, I moved slowly to the guards’ positions.
The back entrance was around the corner. I could feel my heartbeat
speed up. My anxiety and adrenaline rose.

I tapped the hilt of the knife against the
wall. It made a clicking sound. Both guards locked their attention
to the sound and approached the corner. They assumed their
defensive positions. The farthest guard pulled out his gun and
pointed it at the corner, providing cover for his comrade.
Meanwhile, the other guard approached the dark alley. I waited
patiently.

The front guard held his gun in his right
hand. He crept slowly to the wall. He glanced back at his partner.
The rear guard put a silver whistle in his mouth. This was to alarm
the others in the event of a confrontation.

The first guard turned his attention back to
the corner. His feet slowly moved to the alley. He could see my
shadow dart across the ground. With his gun drawn, his arm came
around the corner first.

My timing was crucial. Using my combat
knife, I slashed clear through the guard’s wrist. His hand clumped
off the bone with the gun still in its grip.

I dove passed the falling appendage. I began
falling to the ground. My firearm was pointed in the direction of
the rear guard. Two bullets ignited through my silencer and cut
through the air. The first hit the rear guard’s left shoulder, and
the second cut through his throat. The guard fell back to the wall.
The whistle dropped out of his lips. His gun bounced onto the
ground. He lay on the ground, hacking up blood.

The handless guard clenched his stub. Blood
seeped through the cracks between his fingers covering his only
remaining hand. Then it squirted through his tightly gripped
fingers. He seemed bewildered at what to do next. He tried for his
whistle, but I shot him twice in the chest. His eyes filled with a
fluid combination of blood and tears. These were the last seconds
of his life.

I stood up, picked up the fallen hand, and
threw it onto the dead guard’s remains and out of sight of anyone
passing through the clearing between the edge of the forest and the
bunker.

I stopped and stared at the puddle of blood
on the ground. I saw my reflection in the pool. Now I feel sickened
at what I was thinking. I remember I could see the stars and the
night sky behind my reflection in the pool of blood. It had a hold
on me. I felt like I was standing in a portrait of blood.

I went to the door and tried the handle. It
was locked. I knelt and looked through the keyhole. I could see the
back of a large, steel bar. The door was reinforced as I had
suspected.

“Damn it,” I muttered. I had to get in.

I stared at the door. Then I looked up at
the building. There was a fire escape above a wooden fence. It
looked too high for me to reach though. I looked back at the
door.

A noise came from the other side of the
door. A knock sounded from the inside. It was followed by a second
one. A guard on the other side of the door was checking on the
outside guards. He was signaling.

I returned the set of knocks.

“Everything all right out there?” the guard
asked from the inside.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to muffle my voice.
“Do you have a light?”

“Yes,” the guard answered from inside the
bunker.

A loud noise of steel scraping steel sounded
from the other side of the door. He was unlocking it. I pointed my
gun at the door. The guard stepped out into the alley with a match
in his hand. He lit it as he walked out. A bullet from my gun cut
through the flame from the match and through the guard’s head. His
body fell back down a staircase. I could hear the bones cracking
together as they bounced off each step.

I walked into the stairwell and closed the
door behind me. I pointed the gun both down the stairwell and up.
It was completely empty. I followed the stairs upward. I walked to
the second floor. I came out into a long corridor. The corridor was
scarcely lit. A guard stood at the other end. Light shone from the
room behind him.

I suspected the guard was not alone in the
dark hallway. There must have been another guard in the shadows. I
would have to get past them if I was to enter that room.

I thought about going down the stairs and
trading clothes with the other guard. I could disguise myself. I
might be able to get past them, but that would take more time than
I wanted to waste. The adrenaline was screaming for me to finish
this, to just put a bullet in Hitler’s head. I stepped out and into
the hallway. Slowly, I walked toward the guard, staying in the
shadows. The guard at the end of the hall focused his eyes on my
moving shadow. At first, he thought it was the other patrolling
guard until I started to run toward him.