Mad Powers (Tapped In) (30 page)

Chapter 46

With a gag tied tightly around her mouth, Pippa sat on the floor, her arms securely fastened around her back to a wooden post.

Earlier, she’d retraced the steps she and Heidi had taken to the underground spas. At that time she’d noticed the locked doors and numerous other corridors. She could pick a lock with the best of them but as she explored the castle’s honeycombed underground, it was only a matter of minutes before she became hopelessly lost—one corridor looking nearly identical to another. It was by mere chance she saw several people, dressed in what looked like costumes, excitedly heading in one particular direction.

Soon, other partygoers were joining them and she struggled to keep out of sight. Whatever it was that was drawing them into the bowels of the underground, they were all keyed up. Pippa recognized several people who had attended Heidi’s birthday party. Having to duck behind an ancient archway, she watched four more costumed people pass her by. They were speaking German and she could only hear bits and pieces of their conversation. She was certain she’d heard Vaterland, Wiederauftauchen, and United Reich … It was then Pippa realized those weren’t costumes; no, they were uniforms. Like those distinctly worn by the Nazis, in World War II.

Somewhere behind Pippa came the distant sounds of moaning. She was tempted to follow the Nazi group but felt more compelled to find Baltimore. She started down one passageway only to discover the moans weren’t emanating from that direction. She rushed back the way she’d come and tried a different corridor. The sounds of moaning grew louder. She dreaded what she’d find—who she’d find.

She felt heated air coming from up ahead … waves of heat and bad odors. Instinctively, Pippa swiped at her nose and began breathing through her mouth. She slowed her pace and kept close to the wall. The moaning persisted and coincided with other sounds—metallic clanging sounds. Around the next bend, Pippa saw the corridor had opened into a large, circular chamber. A rock fireplace dominated the center of the room. A scraggily old man, with white hair, was scurrying around, placing what looked like tools onto a table.

Jail-like cells surrounded the outer perimeter of the room. Some were occupied; others seemed to be empty. Suddenly loud screams filled the chamber—Pippa gasped and the hairs on her neck stood straight up. Then Pippa noticed someone lying atop the table. The air, dark and smoky, made visibility from her distance difficult. She squinted her eyes and took a tentative step closer. It wasn’t Baltimore … no, a smaller man, with a bald head.

The old man started to talk to himself. Now, while he was holding up one of his sharp metal tools as if inspecting it, Pippa was on the move. With three long strides she was abreast of the table. Not knowing, or caring, what it was she grabbed for, she drove one of the old man’s sharp, heavy, spiked tools down, onto the back of his skull. He dropped like a bag of rocks.

“What took you so long?” came a voice from the outer rim of the chamber.

“Baltimore?” she called out.

“The one and only,” Baltimore replied.

Pippa looked at the bald-headed man lying on the table. He was dressed in rags and was gazing up at her with surprise in his eyes. “I’m going to get you off of there. Hold on, okay?” Pippa found that the small man had been bound to the table by his wrists and ankles that were tightly secured by leather straps. She used one of the dead man’s knives to cut through the straps and helped the bald-headed man off the table.

“What is your name?”

“Horris.”

“Why was he doing this to you?”

“It’s how they get me to work for them. I’ve tried to hold out many times, but I’m weak and cannot handle the pain.”

“Can you walk?” Pippa asked.

“Walk? No … hobble, maybe,” he replied.

It was then Pippa noticed that his skin was deeply scarred and he was missing most of his toes.

“Hang tight there, Horris, while I release my friend.”

A large metal ring, holding several dozen long keys, hung from a peg on the side of the chimney. Pippa flipped through the keys and noticed she’d have to try each one of them …

“They’re numbered, Pippa. You just have to look closely at the keys themselves,” Baltimore said, standing at the bars of the cell directly in front of her.

“Oh, I see.” There was a large number 23 carved into the stone above Baltimore’s jail cell. She found the corresponding 23 key and used it to open the metal gate.

“Where are your clothes?” Pippa asked, eyeing Baltimore wrapped only in a shredded, bloodied blanket draped loosely around his hips.

“Who knows? It’s the least of our worries. What’s going on with getting the code? Was Chandler successful?”

“I haven’t heard a peep from him,” she said.

When she looked up at Baltimore she saw he was no longer looking in her direction. Neither was Horris.

A crowd had formed at the passageway into the chamber. At the front of the group stood Leon Goertz—hands on hips, chin raised in defiance. A small bandage covered his left cheek. He was dressed in a black Nazi uniform. A red band, emblazoned with a black swastika, was worn on his upper left arm.

“You have disgraced yourself, young lady. I’m terribly disappointed in you,” Leon said. He waved his hand and four similarly dressed soldiers hurried forward, their guns raised. “Bring the two of them here. Put Horris back in his cell. And find David Craft, or whatever his name is.”

Pippa, now gagged, tied up, sat with her back against a roughly hewn wooden post. Baltimore was close by and also secured to a post. No less than fifty armed Neo-Nazi soldiers stood guard around the room’s perimeter.

If their situation wasn’t so dire it would have seemed ludicrous. Pippa was well aware that Neo-Nazi cults, in the main, had been eradicated in Germany. The truth, sadly, was one was far more likely to find fringe, crackpot groups like this one back in the U.S. But here they were—men and women parading around in1940s-era military garb and saying Heil Hitler, left and right, like actors in a crappy World War II B-movie.

The assembly hall was large enough to accommodate several hundred people and on this night it was filled to capacity. The raised dais platform held four high-back chairs, two on each side of a podium.

Pippa felt the lingering stares of the onlookers. If her hands hadn’t been tied behind her back, she would have flipped each and every one of them the bird.

Leon Goertz with three followers walked onto the platform and the audience stood, cheered, and clapped their hands. The big Nazi flags hanging from above, on each of the hall’s walls, gently swayed in the ongoing commotion. Leon stood behind the podium and held up his hands, signaling everyone to settle down.

“Thank you. Everyone, please sit … we need to get started.” As the audience settled back into their seats, Leon looked around the hall and smiled. He turned back and looked at Pippa and Baltimore with an expression of disdain.

“Soon, I’ll introduce our esteemed leader. But first, I would like to thank you, all of you, for your continued faith in our cause. It is only through your support we have accomplished so much. We have bided our time. We have been patient for sixty-five years and withstood ongoing worldwide condemnation and humiliation. Soon, very soon, the fatherland will rise again—take its place as the world’s dominant power.”

The audience cheered and applauded and continually sang out
Blut und Ehre! Blut und Ehre! Blut und Ehre
! until Leon gestured for them to quiet down.

“We’ve struck, not with guns or missiles or tanks, but where civilization is most vulnerable … its financial infrastructure. With nary a shot fired, we have invaded into the very core of our enemy and soon we will control every aspect of the world’s economy.”

Blut und Ehre!
Blut und Ehre!
Blut und Ehre
!

“Now … there are these here—sent to destroy us … to keep from us what is so rightfully ours.”

Leon turned and looked at Pippa and Baltimore.

Blut und Ehre! Blut und Ehre! Blut und Ehre
!

“We must send out a decisive message that we will not tolerate interference. With the execution of these covert operatives, we will convey a clear message to the United States and other nations, that Germany, our new and rejuvenated
fatherland,
will not be disempowered ever again. With that, I present you our esteemed Frau Fuhrer!”

The audience was back on their feet and clapping feverishly.
Frau Fuhrer! Frau Fuhrer! Frau Fuhrer!
Heidi Goertz walked onto the raised dais dressed in a black military jacket and skirt. She wore the same red, white, and black swastika band on her upper arm as her husband. Her blonde hair, as she typically wore it, was pulled back into a long braid that fell down her back. Perched atop her head was a German officer’s cap.

“
Danke.
Thank you.
Danke.
Thank you all.
Blut und Ehre!
”

The audience cheered, tears filling many an eye.
Blut und Ehre!

Heidi looked at her watch and smiled. “Today is Sunday. Tomorrow, Monday morning, when the world’s markets reopen for trading, the WZZ, and all of Germany, will begin its final charge. As one goliath company after another falls, becomes the property of the WZZ, a new world order will emerge. Our job is still not complete. We must pound our adversaries into the ground. We must punish them. We must drink the very blood of our enemy! Let the ritual begin …”

Frau Fuhrer! Frau Fuhrer! Frau Fuhrer! Frau Fuhrer!

The audience stood and the room became quiet. Several men removed the four chairs and podium from the raised dais. A long wooden table, with two metal vats, was carried in and positioned in front of Pippa and Baltimore. Two men roughly grabbed Baltimore’s arms and he was pulled up on his feet. Two other men did the same to Pippa. A leather collar was fitted around her neck and fastened to the post.

Next she felt a prick on her forearm. Pippa’s mind was racing. She tried to resist, to pull away from the post and the hands holding her. She felt the sting as an IV needle was inserted into her arm. She screamed into the thick material covering her mouth. A long polyurethane tube hung from Pippa’s arm and drooped down into one of the metal vats. Pippa watched as the tube filled and turned red, blood freely flowing from her arm, down the tube, and into the awaiting vat. Pippa heard Baltimore yelling behind his gag. He, too, was filling a vat with blood.

Pippa watched as Heidi approached her. She’d removed her hat and military jacket, revealing a crisp white dress shirt. Inches from her face, Heidi spoke with a soft voice.

“I so wish this could have turned out differently. I had such hopes for us. Truth be told, I don’t have many close friends. So, so, disappointing.” Heidi leaned in and kissed Pippa on the cheek, and then touched her cheek with the back of her palm.

Heidi stood back and looked to the audience behind her. Jackets had been removed. Hats and caps removed. Everyone stood quietly and waited. Heidi moved to the far side of the table, and stood before the first metal vat—Pippa’s vat. The bottom of the container was now completely covered in thick red blood. Pippa knew the average woman held a little over three liters of blood.
How much blood can I lose before I die?

The audience was moving, forming a line behind their leader,
Frau Fuhrer.
Heidi took one more look in Pippa’s direction and then leaned over the vat. Using hands cupped together, as one would when getting a drink from a stream, she dipped them into the warm red liquid and brought them up to her lips. She sipped and swallowed. She wiped the blood onto her face and down across her crisp white shirt.
Blut und Ehre!
Heidi moved on down the table and repeated the same movements with Baltimore’s blood.
Blut und Ehre!
Leon’s turn followed, and then other high-ranking Neo-Nazi officers. Eventually, the first ones from the audience stepped onto the platform and stood at the table.

Feeling light-headed, Pippa looked out at the hundreds of guests quietly waiting their turn. She wondered if there would be enough blood to go around. She realized that if she turned her body ever so slightly and she raised her head against her bindings, she was just able to peer into the metal vat.
Already so much blood.

The movement had had another effect, as well. It pulled and put tension on the long polyurethane tube. Pippa felt the pain in her arm as the I.V. needle pulled against her skin this way and that. Was it loosening? Could she pull the needle free before she bled out?

She then thought of Rob; she hadn’t told him—she needed to tell him—how much she loved him.

Chapter 47

By the time I jumped down to the next balcony below, I was finding it difficult to stand—and, unfortunately, I was still two floors up. My mental interactions with Heimi had been so intense and focused, well beyond anything I’d attempted before. That steely concentration depleted all my vitality, strength, and natural recuperative ability—something I’d have to keep in mind for the future. The problem at hand was worsening too: withdrawal symptoms. There simply was no way I could jump down to the next balcony. I’d have to break into the room next to me.

I used my ring to unlock the French doors and shuffled into the suite. Empty. It was another office space, smaller and less appointed than Leon’s. I staggered across the office to the other entrance. I opened the door several inches and peered out. The hallway was clear—no one around. Out in the hallway, I pushed myself forward. My arms and legs had begun to spasm, something new added to my deteriorating condition. I found a stairway and, one slow step at a time, descended to the ground floor.

I knew where I was. This was the great room, where we’d first entered into the castle. I slowly stepped around a corner and came face to face with a guard dressed in a Nazi uniform. Looking as surprised as I was, he started to raise his AK47. But he was a fraction of a second too slow. I already had Lance’s pistol in my hand and pointed at his face. “Lass die Waffe fallen,”
Drop the gun,
I said.