Return From the Inferno (33 page)

Zweite stepped forward and ripped the communiqué out from the officer's hands.

"Whoever is responsible for this will die!" the Marshal declared. "It is simply impossible for this to be happening. The Great Ship has just passed through New Orleans no less than two hours ago."

"We tried to confirm the report," the communications officer said. "But every station between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is off the air. Ten stations in total."

"Have you tried raising the station that sent these messages?" Zweite asked, waving the yellow fax paper in the man's face.

The communications officer nodded slowly. "There was no reply, Herr Marshal,"

he said slowly. "They too have gone off the air."

Zweite turned to look at his counterparts. Both were nearly trembling next to the war table; Dritte's hands were shaking so much, he was spilling his sherry.

"It can't be happening," Zweite yelled back at them. "It's impossible. The Americans are obviously sabotaging our communication lines."

The communications officer picked this inopportune moment to interrupt. "Sir, if I could just suggest that . . ."

Zweite spun around and nearly punched him.

"You are dismissed!" he screeched at him. "And not a word about this to anybody."

The young officer quickly left the room, instinctively knowing that he had heard too much.

"This could be serious," Dritte began whining as soon as the man had left. "We have to inform the Amerikafuhrer and the rest of Command . . ."

Zweite's face turned beet red. "Are you insane?" he spit at Dritte. "If this is true, the last thing we want to do is let him in on it. He'll be peeing his dress in a second."

Erste was tense and yanking on his chin. "He will panic," he said. "He will want to call off the wedding."

"He has to be informed!" Dritte insisted. "He is our leader."

"We can take care of this our way!" Zweite screamed back. "We can destroy these boats-// they exist. How big can they be?"

"We don't have the troops or the weapons to do any such thing," Dritte shouted back. "The only units down there

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are the ceremonial battalions. If there are any left. Most of our best units are still up at Bundeswehr Four, looking for the Americans. We could never get them to the area in time."

Erste was now literally pulling the hair out of his chin. "We might be able to stop them from the air."

"How?" Dritte cried. "A major portion of our fixed-wing air force was lost at Bundeswehr Four. We have but two squadrons here at Fuhrerstadt and some helicopters, but it will not be enough if this force is as large as those people reported."

A dead silence fell over the triangle room for what seemed like an eternity.

"Can't you see what has happened?" Dritte finally whined. "They've tricked us.

They've forced us to move our best troops north and now they attack us from the south. They've destroyed most of our area air force and it will take time for any reinforcements to arrive. We've got nothing but a bunch of horn blowers and drummer boys between us and them!"

"You're panicking!" Zweite yelled at him. "They're still seven hundred miles down the river."

Erste downed another quick glass of sherry. "But what if they catch up with the Great Ship and . . ."

Now it was Zweite's turn to panic. He began to say something, but caught himself at the last moment. Dritte stepped forward and grabbed the communiqués out of his hands.

"I am taking these to our Leader," he declared. "It is his decision on what should be done. We have to consider that . . ."

Dritte never finished his sentence. Zweite had his derringer out and had fired a shot to the man's temple at such close range, Dritte was dead before he hit the floor.

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Zweite then turned to Erste. "Do you agree with my decision?" he asked his remaining other partner. "And that we can handle this our own way?"

Erste nodded, with the tremors spreading throughout his body.

"First thing we do is liquidate the communications officer," he replied.

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It was nightfall by the time the 800 men of the 3rd Battalion of the NS Strom Wacht-River Guard-were allowed back to their barracks.

It had been a long, hot day for the crack unit. They'd been forced to stand along a two-mile stretch of the Mississippi's west bank since noon, waiting far the Great Ship to appear. But several tricky turns just west of New Orleans harbor had slowed the huge ship's journey considerably. So instead of passing through Baton Rouge shortly after 1200 hours, the vessel didn't appear until well past 4 PM.

The eventual four-hour delay was not an excuse to let down any of the pageantry planned for the grand occasion, and this was why the troops had spent the hot afternoon standing in the sun at parade rest, their heavy wool, dark-blue ceremonial dress uniforms seemingly gaining more weight by the hour.

On the other bank of the Mississippi, were several thousand additional NS

troops, band units and ceremonial flag squads mostly. They too had suffered the long afternoon standing with their instruments ready in the hot sun. But unlike other huge Nazi occasions, there were no American citizens about.

Instead of being pressed into service by the thousands to wave flags and cheer at whatever Fourth Reich dignitary was passing at the moment. The citizens of Baton Rouge had been trucked out of the

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city the day before, evacuated to points unknown.

When the ship finally did sail up the river and past the city, the reception it received while not spontaneous, was nevertheless very tumultuous. The crowds of NS ceremonial soldiers cheered on cue and the dozens of gun salutes went off like clockwork. As the only real combat troops involved, the members of the Strom Wacht snapped to crisp attention and stayed that way. The military bands played, military choruses sang, and dozens of lowly transportation troops dropped rose petals on the ship as it passed below the specially constructed draw bridge just north of the city. All the while, a trio of Fourth Reich Blackhawk gunships circled overhead continuously, showering those below with tons of confetti on each piece of which was printed a microscopic recreation of the Fourth Reich's swastika logo.

It was a long, tortuous affair. And while the troops of the 3rd Strom Wacht liked a good Zeremonie as much as anyone, they were just as glad to see the damn ship pass safely under the new bridge and continue on its slow northwesterly direction up the river, trailed by a wake of muddy wash, drowning rose petals and soaked confetti.

As a reward for their long day's work, the commandant of the River Guard Battalion officially ordered ten kegs of Austrian lager delivered to the 3rd's barracks. At the same time, the top officer unofficially ordered that 100

young girls left behind in the evacuation of the city be shuttled to the 3rd's camp by midnight, this to provide his men with additional carnal pleasure.

With the ceremony finally done and the Great Ship safely continuing up river, a sense of relief and accomplishment settled over the Baton Rouge headquarters of the Fourth Reich. So much so that it went widely unnoticed by the city's NS

commanders that the official radio message sent up to Fuhrerstadt reporting on the ship's safe passage went totally unacknowledged.

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*

The troops had gathered in their camp's main recreation hall where the lager flew and plans were made to stage an elaborate auction as a way of parceling out the soon-to-be-arriving young girls. Only those Strom Wacht posted for guard duty on the new bridge span nearby and at the front gate of the camp would miss out on the, night of drinking and wanton debauchery.

It was one of the camp's main gate guards who saw it first.

Initially, it was just a slight movement, about 100 feet into the thick willow-tree forest which collared the 3rd's camp on all four sides. The sullen guard, his mouth dry from want of lager, thought at first that he was seeing things. It looked like a long, dark, slender tube moving slowly past the tree branches off to his right. He heard no noise-not at first anyway. Just the slightest" reflection of the full moon's light off this strange, slow-moving cylindrical object.

There were many swamps in the area, and the guard had seen firsthand what swamp gas could do. Lights sometimes bounced crazily off the ever-present methane mixture, while at other times it would accumulate so tightly in a small area as to suggest something solid in nature.

But the guard knew this was not swamp gas. This thing was dark and moving slowly but steadily toward him. More out of curiosity than a sense of duty, the soldier left his post, went out the side gate and walked to the top of a grassy knoll which looked down into the woods. Raising his NightScope binoculars to his eyes and punching them up to full power, he was absolutely astonished to find himself looking down the turret barrel of a 282

heavily-camouflaged Chieftain main battle tank.

The curious guard was dead an instant later, his body literally blown apart by the opening volley of the impending night battle. The shell which took him smashed into the main guardhouse at the entrance to the Strom Wacht camp, vaporizing it along with three other guards. A second shot, fired by another Chieftain lurking nearby, slammed into the camp's communication hut, instantly demolishing it and the gaggle of long range antennas and satellite dishes which had decorated its roof. A third shell fired an instant later landed squarely on the camp's tiny fuel depot, causing an explosion so violent it broke nearly every window for two miles around.

The succession of three quick accurate shots startled the drunken troops inside the rec hall, some of whom yelled at first that the noise was simply from leftover celebratory fireworks. Sober heads knew better, and within seconds, the camp's klaxon was blaring everyone to battle quarters. The first soldiers to run outside the hall were astonished to see no fewer than five enormous Chieftains in the process of busting down the camp's surrounding wire. Machinegun fire was washing all over the campground. The power blinked once then went out. Caught in the powerful beams of searchlights attached to the Chieftains' turrets, the drunken, unarmed Nazi soldiers began falling by the dozens to the brutally accurate cannon fire.

Within a minute's time, more than half the battalion's 800 men were dead.

The sounds of the sudden explosions alerted the 25-man unit charged with guarding the new bridge about two kilometers away.

Repeated calls over to the Srd's encampment found no reply, and the ever-increasing glow from the general direction of the camp gave rise to fears that some terrible accident

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had taken place, possibly involving the battalion's weapons magazine.

A 12-man squad was immediately dispatched to the scene, while calls went across the river to the Fourth Reich's General Command HQ located in the middle of Baton Rouge itself.

But when the dozen men arrived ten minutes later at the camp, they were confronted with a very perplexing, bizarre scene. The 3rd Battalion's camp was simply no more. Every building was either destroyed or still burning. Not a man was left standing. Fires were raging out of control in every quarter and indeed the camp's weapons storage bunker was in the midst of self-immolation.

But these men also saw evidence of tank tracks and destruction that could only have come from heavy weapons. Yet there were no enemy tanks about. But even more mysterious, they found that the trees ringing the outside of the perimeter had been splashed with gallons of green luminescent paint forming a huge, glow-in-the-dark circle around the camp.

Radioing this perplexing news back to their commanders, the entire military district around Baton Rouge went on a high state of alert. The ceremonial troops in the city for the passing of the Great Ship were now issued weapons and assigned to positions around the new bridge. Helicopters with powerful searchlights were sent aloft to patrol overhead. Searches of houses left empty by the mass evacuation were conducted. Yet nothing was found.

Confused and in need of advice, the Fourth Reich Baton Rouge commander made an urgent call to Fuhrerstadt to report the situation. But while the message was received by the communications unit in the Reichstag itself, there was no immediate reply.

Perplexed, the commander then radioed the headquarters of the huge New Orleans NS garrison, only to find that

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there was no communications link to that city at all.

It was the members of the 465th Musik Korps who saw it first.

Stationed on the approaches to the large, brand new drawbridge built specially for the Great Ship's passage, they saw the red lights first, moving slowly toward them from downriver. Gradually the pinpricks of light grew in size and brightness and it was soon obvious they were attached to some kind of vessel.

Normally the 3rd Battalion of Strom Wacht would have been charged with defense of the bridge, but with them completely destroyed, the task fell to these unprepared ceremonial troops.

Predictably, their commanders immediately panicked. Radio calls went back and forth to Baton Rouge headquarters, and more semi-combat troops were dispatched. But by this time, the vessel was in full view of the musician-soldiers, many of which couldn't believe their eyes. Bathed in intense searchlights from the bridge and the surrounding banks, the NS troops were astonished to see the enormous menacing outline of the battleship New Jersey.

Armed with no more than AK-41 rifles and mortars, the woefully unprepared troops nevertheless opened fire on the looming battlewagon.

But it was hopeless from the start. The ship was moving at 30 knots: was firing all of its five-inch guns at once, ripping up the Musik Korps positions with deadly efficiency. Tank shells being lobbed by Chieftains installed on Barges #1 and #2 came down like rain on the hapless NS troops. The city's solitary Blackhawk made the mistake of coming in low over the New Jersey, its pilots attempting to shoot out the battleship's communications antenna array-it was quickly dispatched by two, well-placed SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles, the