Blitzkrieg: Origins of the Prime: A Superhero Spy Thriller (6 page)

He decided that he would take a long walk around the city today, just in case someone was following him. It was always better to be cautious. He scolded himself for becoming lackadaisical the last few years. Walking the same routes, taking coffee at the same cafes. He had grown far too comfortable here over the last two decades. He needed to once again start presuming he was being followed and take precautions to give anyone who might be out there the slip. Then, hopefully, if someone actually was following him, he would lose them. He hurried three more blocks taking long strides, before turning to the right. He walked just a few steps and turned to glance over his shoulder again. When he turned back to face forward, he jerked to a halt as he almost collided with Alena. She smiled at him. He stared at her with his eyes wide and his mouth agape. His skin turned pale with fright and he felt goose bumps dancing up his arms. How had she moved ahead of him so fast?

“I never got a chance to ask you for directions,” she said in German. Her tone was conversational and completely non-threatening. Still, she frightened him.

“I-I am afraid I do not know my way around the city,” Michael stammered before turning and running out in front of traffic to cross the street. Drivers blared their horns as they slammed their brakes to avoid colliding with him. As Michael reached the other side of the street he glanced back over his shoulder, but again saw no one pursuing him. In fact the girl just stood where he had left her, casually leaning against a building, watching him as he ran. She had a knowing smirk on her face and it chilled him.

Michael did not slow, but instead quickened his pace, dropping his newspaper as he fled Alena and whomever else might be following him. He realized, that if this woman was here for him, and now he was almost certain that she was, that she would not be alone. He ran several blocks, wending and winding through the city, making several turns and running in a zigzag pattern to throw any pursuers off his trail. He then entered a busy market, made his way through it, pushing past tourists, customers, and vendors alike before finally stepping out on the other side. He took this opportunity to glance around to see if he saw her. He did not, so he turned back around to walk away from the market.

Michael’s heart leapt into his throat. As he turned, she stood right in front of him as if she had just appeared from nowhere. Michael jumped back, startled. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?” He was afraid he already knew the answer to the second question.

“I told you,” she said, “my name is Alena.” She smiled a coy smile. “Of course twenty years ago you knew me by another name, just as I knew you by another name, Herr Colonel,” she said.

His eyes widened. Now it all made sense. He knew how she kept getting in front of him and he knew why he recognized her. She looked exactly like her mother.

“Kristel,” he whispered through dry lips.

Alena nodded, her smile changing from coy to wolfish. “Ah, you do remember me, Colonel Arnulf.” She took a confident step toward him, as a lioness would step toward a gazelle. Arnulf stepped backward, away from her, reaching into his coat pocket and removing a pistol. He was still quick on the draw after all of these years and fired as soon as the pistol was pointed at her. Alena was too fast, however, and disappeared in a flash, safely away from the bullets. Arnulf scanned the area, but did not see where she had run. He spun around, dashing back into the market hoping to lose her in the mass of people there. He could not outrun her, he knew that, so he had to lose her.

The crowd had already begun to clear after the gunfire had echoed through the air so losing her might be difficult, but it did make it easier for Arnulf to move through it. He noticed an alley to the right and darted inside, running to the end and then turning a quick left. He had lied to Alena earlier when he said he did not know the city well. The fact was, he knew Santiago better than he had ever known Berlin, having walked every inch of it over and over, to be prepared for a day such as this—when the Nazi-hunters found him to drag him back to be tried for war crimes, and he had to escape. So many of the people he had known had already been captured, many of them executed. He knew his record during the war would not play well with the tribunals. Of course, he did have an ace up his sleeve. He had information that they would most likely be willing to exchange his life for.

The question was, however, who was Alena working for? He knew he did not want to be captured by the Russians. That would be the worst. In the back of his mind his ultimate escape plan had been to walk into the American embassy and turn himself in if he ever felt the Russians or Israelis were getting too close. The Americans knew how to treat a man like him. Several of his former comrades were having very successful careers in the United States. You just needed valuable information to trade and Arnulf certainly had that.

Arnulf was not ready to turn himself in yet. Alena might not be working for anyone. She might be doing this on her own. Her own personal vendetta against him burning bright inside her for all of these years. Arnulf ran through the city streets. He knew exactly where he was going. He owned an interest in a pub not far away. German pubs had become very popular in South America over the years and he did quite well with it. He made his way there as quickly as possible.

Arnulf reached the pub and glanced back over his shoulder one last time before swinging the door open and darting inside. He slammed the door closed behind him before turning and locking it. Arnulf spun back around to face the pub. It was too early for most patrons to begin drinking and there were only three occupants. All three worked for him and all three were fugitives like him.

“A Slovakian girl is after me,” he said and the men leapt to their feet, their eyes wide with excitement and fear. “If she comes in, kill her.”

The men nodded, understanding full well the only reason a “Slovakian girl” would be after Arnulf. They each drew pistols as Arnulf made his way through the bar and into the back office where he locked the door. He walked around the desk and fell exhausted into the soft cushions of his office chair. He reached into his coat, drew his pistol and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. Soon, there was a loud crash followed by gunfire. Lots of gunfire. Too much gunfire. “Kill her!” he shouted to no one. Suddenly, the gunfire ceased and he heard footsteps tapping along the wooden floorboards toward his office. There was a light knock on the door and Arnulf aimed his pistol at it. “W-who’s there?” he stammered through dry lips. When there was no answer Arnulf assumed it was the girl and fired a couple of rounds through the door. He waited in silence, staring at the door, his pistol still trained upon it, and unsure of what to do next.

Suddenly, the wall behind him burst forward, knocking Arnulf across the desk in a shower of boards, splinters and debris. Arnulf turned and looked up to see a mountain of a man stepping through the giant hole in the wall, entering his office from the outside.

Arnulf scrambled to his feet. He pointed the pistol at the giant before him, but the man grabbed his wrist and squeezed tightly, the bone nearly snapping before Arnulf dropped the gun. Then the man reached down and wrapped his massive hand around Arnulf’s neck and throat, lifting him up into the air with one arm.

“Hello, Herr Colonel,” the mountain smiled at him.

“Colonel, you remember my brother, Alexi,” he heard Alena ask from behind him. “Of course, you called him Gerd. You helped make him into a killer. Do you remember that? Do you remember that day in Berlin, Colonel?” Alena hissed. “For your sake, I hope he didn’t take to your instruction, because
I
want you alive…for now.”

Arnulf saw Alexi smiling giddily like a child with a new toy, just as he lost consciousness from lack of oxygen and everything went black.

Chapter 5

Washington, D.C.

1965

The sun shone bright over the urban combat training facility. Tom Flemming gave Axel and Rolf a little wink. The twin brothers had grown quite close to Tom since he and Professor Hayes had rescued them from the Nazi genetics facility twenty years ago. Tom not only felt sympathy for Axel and Rolf, but also a genuine fondness and had taken it upon himself to act as a sort of older brother to them, always eager to help whenever he could. While life was certainly improved from their cold, sterile existence in Germany, their childhood had still been extremely unusual. Lots of children grew up without knowing their parents, but few other orphans were the products of genetic experimentation. Like many orphans, Axel and Rolf were raised by the government, but not in the normal way. While most of the government’s wards were considered “burdens of the state,” Axel and Rolf were considered assets. Very special, genetically enhanced assets. Thus, Tom did everything he could to make their childhood as normal as possible. He and Professor Hayes had taken them to museums, ballgames, and parks. They had gone camping and fishing and learned to play sports. Tom even bought Axel his first beer.

Of course, Tom served as more than a mentor and friend. He was also charged by the government to facilitate their training and turn Axel and Rolf into agents for the United States. After all, while the U.S. government’s methods were less barbaric and more considerate than the Germans’, the truth was that they had the same interest in Axel and Rolf that the Nazis did—as super soldiers.

The desire to create super humans through modern science was nothing new. Prior to World War II, eugenics, as it was widely known then, was a fast-growing scientific field. However, following the Nazi brutality and Hitler’s attempts to engineer a genetically superior race, the idea of eugenics was no longer socially acceptable and the science more or less disappeared from public view. It did not go away, however. The desire to create super humans burned as hot as ever, especially when it had been discovered that the Nazis had actually been successful.

From a strategic military perspective, the development of genetically enhanced super soldiers was necessary for victory in the Cold War. If the Soviets had super soldiers, and there was no reason to believe they were not developing their own, then the U.S. needed them as well. If the Soviets did not have super soldiers then the U.S. having them would give Uncle Sam an advantage. Thus, following the war the President formed the Clandestine Scientific Operations Service or CSOS as it was more commonly known around Washington. The CSOS was a secret offshoot of the OSS that had somehow maintained its independence when the OSS morphed into the Central Intelligence Agency. Their stated mission was to ensure that the United States remained scientifically ahead of the Soviet Union in the postwar scientific frontiers, and to use that scientific advantage to defeat the Communists. In reality, they primarily analyzed intelligence on the Soviet’s scientific achievements provided to them by various military branches and intelligence agencies.

After twenty years, the funding for the CSOS had slowed to a mere trickle. So far the office had not had a mission and Congress and the President were starting to wonder if they ever would. With the CIA and other spy agencies demanding more and more funding to fight the Communist threat worldwide, it was becoming harder and harder to justify the CSOS and there had been talk that the CIA might absorb it. Not wanting to lose his job, CSOS Director Ian Johnson decided to use the only real trump card he had—his super humans. Axel and Rolf had been trained for clandestine operations for years and Ian tasked Tom with proving that a team of superheroes, as Tom called them, could be used effectively for special missions.

Tom had suggested to the director that perhaps demonstrating what Axel and Rolf could do by showing off their abilities, would loosen the purse strings a bit. After all, it had been years since anyone outside of the CSOS or CIA had actually witnessed the brothers’ powers. Ian agreed and made the arrangements, billing this as a demonstration in the next generation of warfare. A frontier that the United States, thanks to the CSOS, was on the forefront.

Now Tom stood with Axel and Rolf in the middle of a fake town used to train soldiers, police, and federal agents in urban combat. Fifty yards away was a crowd of Congressmen, military personnel, intelligence personnel and representatives from the White House, all eager to see what these so-called “super humans” could do.

“You two ready?” Tom asked Axel and Rolf. Axel glanced over at his brother.

“You okay?” Axel asked Rolf. While Axel understood the purpose for this demonstration, he had obvious concerns for Rolf’s state of mind. The last time they gave a demonstration of their powers to such a large group of government officials with this much pressure on them was in Berlin. Things had gone badly.

“I’m okay,” Rolf smiled. Much to Axel’s relief, Rolf wasn’t making the connection between this demonstration and the one in Berlin.

Axel turned to Tom and nodded to him. Tom glanced back at Ian who was standing with the crowd of VIPs and gave the director a thumbs up, signaling that they were about to begin. Tom watched Ian say something to the observers before he returned the thumbs up.

“Let’s do this,” Tom said with a confident smile and wink to Axel and Rolf. The three of them crouched down behind a vacant concrete building. Their mission for this demonstration was to assault a building across the street. Plastic targets, know as Ivans and shaped like the upper bodies of enemy soldiers stood on the grounds between them and their objective. More Ivans were set up in the target building itself. Tom carried a dummy rifle and would not actually fire any rounds. He was there to lead the team and act, more or less, as a prop. Axel and Rolf would take down all of the targets, and hopefully do so in a manner that would impress the onlookers.

Tom peeked around the corner of the building as if actual Russian soldiers were waiting to kill them. He turned to the brothers who crouched behind Tom, against the wall of the building, and waved for Axel to assault. Axel stood and in a bit of theatrics that would make any urban combat instructor fuming mad, ran out into the middle of the “town” and dove into a somersault, rolling to a kneeling position and sending a bolt of blue energy at each of the four Ivans placed in front of the building. The Ivans flew backward with the force of each bolt.