My Immortal The Vampires of Berlin (26 page)

The main problem that Chuikov faced—besides the tenacity of the cornered Germans—was the 88 mm guns on top of the flak towers at
Friedrichshain
,
Humboldthain
and the Zoo. The thick concrete walls of the flak towers were invulnerable to Soviet artillery and aircraft. The structures resembled a medieval castle; they were also entirely self-contained, so there was no hope of starving out the occupants any time soon. The deadly accurate 88 mm guns made life a living hell for the Soviet troops that found themselves in their sights.
The lives of the men taken by the 88s today would be the cost of doing business with the devil
, he thought.

Chuikov watched the seconds count down. At exactly 0600 hours, thousands of Soviet guns simultaneously opened fire. Armageddon had come to Berlin.

61

The sounds of the Soviet artillery barrage reverberated through Berlin, like the loudest thunderstorm in history.

Far above the battle, a vampire bat flew past the burning
Reichstag
, through the billowing smoke and over the Goddess of Victory that topped the Brandenburg Gate; there was hardly a square inch of the monument that wasn’t pockmarked from bullets and shell fragments.

To the west of the Brandenburg Gate, the SS had carved a makeshift airstrip out of the
Tiergarten
. There, two Ju-52 transport planes revved their engines and waited. The first aircraft carried a platoon of highly trained SS troops, the security force for Operation Tristan. The other plane was to carry the Third Reich’s most precious cargo—the Tristan weapon itself.

Fanatical SS guards with machine guns kept the few civilians and
Wehrmacht
soldiers who were brazen enough to try to get on one of the planes at bay as they waited for Heydrich.

All of the sudden, an SS officer crawled out of the rubble and sprinted towards the guards with a briefcase. “Let me through!” he shouted. “I need to get on that plane!”

The guards were stupefied—it was Heinrich Himmler,
Reichsführer
of the SS. They recognized him, but they were under strict orders not to allow anyone other than Reinhard Heydrich near the planes. There were no exceptions, not even for high-ranking Nazi officials.

Himmler stopped in his tracks when he saw the guns pointed at him. “Put your damn weapons down!” he shouted. “That’s an order!”

The nervous guards didn’t lower their guns, but they weren’t inclined to shoot the man who they worshiped since his rise to power either.

Himmler took advantage of their indecisiveness and sweetened the deal. He opened the briefcase and showered them with gold coins and diamonds. “Take it! It’s yours!” Then he dropped the briefcase and ran right past them.

When the
Reichsführer
tried to get onto a plane, however, his efforts to save himself were rewarded by a punch in the face from a fanatical soldier who had no intention of deviating from his orders. The blow broke Himmler’s trademark round glasses and he fell to the ground.

The plane roared away, leaving the
Reichsführer
coughing in a cloud of fumes and dust. Before it could lift off, a Russian shell hit the starboard engine and exploded. The fuselage cracked in half and spilled SS soldiers all over the ground, many of them on fire.

Himmler watched the gruesome crash in disbelief as the battle for the runway intensified. There was still one transport plane left, but with so much lead flying, he decided to take his chances on the ground. He picked up what was left of his glasses and ran back into the rubble.

As the second plane moved into position, more Russian soldiers appeared at the Brandenburg Gate. A grenade exploded and three more SS troopers fell. The situation was deteriorating. The beleaguered defenders of the runway were hopelessly outnumbered and their ranks were thinning fast.

Heydrich raced to the plane and led a mad chaotic scramble up the ladder. He had gotten them into a plane, but the real feat was going to be getting it out of Berlin in one piece. “Go! Go! Go!” he screamed at the pilot as a rifle round cracked the cockpit windshield.

The engines roared and the plane taxied down the runway. A guard leaned out the door and shot at the Russians who were trying to cut them off. His targets fired back
en masse
; the guard took two rounds to the stomach and fell out of the plane. Then the pilot slumped forward, blood pouring out of his ear.

“Axel, the pilot got hit! Get up there! Fly the plane!” Wolf screamed.

Axel ran for the controls as the plane roared down the runway, sans pilot. Through the cockpit windshield, he saw the other transport plane engulfed in flames. They were headed right for it!

The bat swooped low towards the airplane at an incredible speed and landed right in the middle of the battle for the runway. A meter from the wing, the creature transformed into the vampire Rodika, who now had the outline of a crucifix permanently etched into her face. The Russians streaming through the Brandenburg Gate were so intent on taking the plane down that most of them didn’t notice her until she was standing on the wing.

Axel pushed the pilot’s body out of the seat and took the controls. He didn’t think they had enough runway left to get airborne, but he was determined to try.

Suddenly, there was a sharp jolt. Eva screamed. A split-second later, Rodika’s fist smashed through the corrugated steel above Sebastian’s head. Sebastian rolled away across the cabin as Wolf and Heydrich shot through the side of the plane at their unseen adversary.

In the cockpit, Axel desperately pulled the stick back as the end of the runway approached. “Come on baby! Come on baby! You can do it!” he shouted.

With meters to spare, the plane rose into the air. Unfortunately, the danger wasn’t over—Rodika darted across the wing towards the engine!

Sebastian kicked the door open and went out after her. He slipped on the wing but regained his balance and dove at the vampire in a desperate attempt to save the plane.

Rodika pivoted just as he got to her and landed three quick punches to his head. The last blow was so hard that he thought his skull was fractured. Sebastian fell backwards, dazed. Despite the pain, he was able to hold onto the wing and recover his senses.

As Rodika ripped a panel off of the engine, Sebastian charged again. This time, he hit her low, in the knees. The tactics worked—Rodika lost her balance and fell onto the wing.

Sebastian grabbed her by the neck and pushed her head towards the propeller in a rage. The vampire fought back fiercely; it took every ounce of his strength to push her into the spinning blades.

Right before she got chopped, Rodika pulled backwards towards the blades and tried to take Sebastian with her. The propeller made short work of her head and showered the plane with vampire body parts that quickly burned up and disintegrated. Unfortunately, the flying body parts included Sebastian’s hand. He instinctively knew that it would regenerate, but not soon enough.

As Sebastian tried to make his way back into the plane, a Russian anti-aircraft battery opened up. A searing hot piece of flak hit the tail and the plane nose-dived. Sebastian lost his grip on the wing and flew end-over-end towards the propeller. He was able to push away from the spinning blades at the last second and he plummeted through the air.

Inside the aircraft, Axel struggled to pull the stick back. The ground was approaching fast; the screaming engines sounded as if they were about to rip apart.

“Pull up, Pull up!” Heydrich shouted.

“I’m trying!” Axel yelled.

Wolf closed his eyes and hugged Eva in anticipation of the crash. Seconds before impact, Axel miraculously pulled the plane up. After it came out of the dive, the aircraft gained altitude quickly. The burning buildings and plumes of billowing smoke disappeared over the horizon.

“Unbelievable! Two close calls and we still made it out of Berlin! That was incredible! Amazing!” Axel shouted from the cockpit. “Hey Sebastian—how did you like that crazy ride?”

When he didn’t get a response, Axel looked back into the cabin. Eva was crying. Wolf just shook his head. The pilot’s heart sank when he realized that Sebastian was gone.

Axel turned his attention back to the instrument panel. He felt the loss of his friend, but that was tempered by the fact that his own death was—for the first time in weeks—no longer imminent. “Where are we going? Switzerland?” he asked.

“Argentina.” Wolf replied.

“You’re going to have to refine your travel plans, Major. We don’t have enough fuel to get to Italy, let alone South America.”

“Head south. We’re going to Prague,” Heydrich said.

Wolf was mystified. “Prague? That would be suicide. The Russians have already overrun most of Czechoslovakia.”

“The Russians have not yet moved into Prague, Major Kepler. We’re going there—preparations have been made for our arrival.”

Wolf stared at Heydrich. He thought that he knew him from somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place it.

Heydrich was amused that Wolf still hadn’t recognized him. The Hungarian surgeon had done brilliant work. Unfortunately for him, Adolf Hitler ensured that the good doctor ended his career and life at
Auschwitz
, as a personal research subject of Dr. Mengele.

“Try to get some sleep, Major,” he said. “We have an appointment with destiny.”

“War is fear cloaked in courage.”

-- General William C. Westmoreland

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