Gavin Smith: Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

There was no-one to help. The Fräulein was still marching inexorably towards the barracks. The makeshift bleachers stood between Vadim and Skull. Princess and Gulag were both still in the prefabs, and judging by the gunfire, New Boy was still fighting for his life in the pit. The flames from the burning tanks flickered in the blade of Kerrican’s knife as the tip came closer and closer. Vadim felt the cold steel against his dead forehead, the sharp point parting it. He felt the tip meet his skull, felt the bone crack. It would be peace, at last; all he had to do was let it happen.

Vadim wasn’t ready to stop existing yet. He screamed, and with all of his might tried to push the blade away, but Kerrican was right. He was stronger.

“ Lernen! ”

A rusted iron spike was suddenly rammed through Kerrican’s head; he vomited blood all over Vadim and then collapsed to the ground. Vadim pushed the madman’s body off him and scrambled backwards.

The earless corpse of Captain Schiller stood over him, staring down.

Vadim brought his weapon up.

“Captain?” he asked. A chain ran from Schiller’s collar to the spike through Kerrican’s head. “Are you in control?”

“Go.” The word was torn from a dry throat. Vadim backed away from the other zombie, then turned and sprinted for the prefab by the gate. He heard a grenade explode behind him.

He glanced at the Fräulein, who’d made it into the barracks. Tracers zipped past the window; she was firing towards the rear wall, away from the other huts.

VADIM HIT THE door of the prefab hard and walked straight into a burst of fire from an MP-40. Three rounds stitched a diagonal line across his chest. Overconfident , he thought, as he squeezed the trigger of the StG 44 and returned the favour, killing the gunman.

The inside of the hut was spartan, with two rows of beds running down each side of the structure. The refugees and crew were standing at the far end of the hut, against the back wall. It took a moment to work out why. There were three guards still in with them, who had been organising them into a human shield.

“You just need to back out now,” the one in the middle called to him.

“And then what? All your friends have surrendered,” Vadim told him.

The refugees looked scared, but not terrified; there was very little snivelling or crying. After what they had been through over the last nine days, Vadim could understand why. “I want everyone to kneel down,” he told them.

“Stay where you are!” the guard ordered.

“You know me,” Vadim said to the refugees as he switched the selector on the StG 44 from automatic to semi-automatic. “Please do as I ask.”

“If any of you kneel, I start killing,” the SS man said.

“If he starts killing, just throw yourselves forward,” Vadim told them.

“I’ll get some of them!” the guard shouted, his voice breaking.

“I’m Russian. If you know anything about us, you must realise I’m prepared to accept losses to achieve victory. You know that as soon as you kill any of them, you lose your leverage. And my friends from the Dietrich know I will act whether they kneel or not.” The refugees started to kneel. The SS guard screamed at them, but they ignored him.

With the refugees down on their knees, Vadim got a much better view of the situation. The SS man on his right, his knife to Colstein’s throat, was young and frightened, tears running down his face. The man on the left, holding a pistol to the Carlsson boy’s head, looked tense, but was handling it. The one in the middle, a big brutish man who looked like an Allied propaganda poster of a Nazi stormtrooper, had a pistol to Maria’s head. As horrible as it sounded, Vadim was just relieved Maria wasn’t in the Joy Division. He kept his weapon trained on him.

“Hello, Colstein,” Vadim said.

“A fucking Jew, I knew it,” the big guard snapped.

“Hello, Captain Scorlenski,” Colstein said. Something strange seemed to be going on with Maria’s eyes. She kept on looking down. Vadim glanced down and Maria opened her hand, showed him what she was holding.

“Do you trust me, Gerhardt?” Vadim asked Colstein.

“I’m going to have to say ‘no’,” the first mate told him. Vadim smiled.

“Do you hear how quiet it is out there?” Vadim asked the stormtrooper holding Maria. “All your friends are either dead or have surrendered. Pick one.” The guard opened his mouth to answer, and Vadim swung his weapon to the right, squeezed the trigger, hitting the man holding the Carlsson boy dead centre in the head.

The switchblade in Maria’s hand unfolded and she rammed it into the stormtrooper’s arm. He howled in pain as she slithered out of his grip, then shrieked when she rammed the knife into his groin. Vadim cut off the screaming by shooting him in the head. Then he swung around to point his weapon at the young man with his knife to Colstein’s throat. He was shaking and crying, and he appeared to have wet himself.

“Unlike you, I’ve cut a throat,” Vadim told him. “It’s a lot harder than it looks. You really have to saw it. You might cut my friend there a little bit, but you won’t kill him. I, on the other hand, will kill you, assuming the lady with the switchblade doesn’t emasculate you first.” Maria was glaring at the frightened young Nazi, her right hand covered in blood well past the wrist. The boy dropped his knife and stepped away, and some of the longshoremen grabbed him. Vadim lowered his weapon and leaned against the wall. Dead or not, he was exhausted.

0030 GMT, 25th November 1987

Vickerstown, Walney Island, North-West England

CAREFULLY, VADIM PEERED into the yard. It had gone quiet. He could make out New Boy and Harris hunkered down in the scaffold stands. They were keeping an eye on Captain Schiller, who was standing over Kerrican’s corpse, swaying slightly, as though drunk. Vadim looked back at the refugees and crew.

“Take their weapons, but stay in here,” he told them, before turning back to the doorway and shouting to the others that he was coming out and not to shoot. He moved carefully out into the yard and slipped in the icy slush, landing hard on his arse in the cold and the wet.

VADIM MADE IT over to the scaffolding. Only now was he able to take in the full extent of the damage. The two Tigers had been gutted; one of them had hit a scaffolding guard tower. The force of the blast had blown the tanks into the wall, demolishing part of that as well. New Boy was cradling his SLR and had a finger in his ear.

“That is a really loud rifle,” he muttered as Vadim joined him. Then he nodded upwards. Vadim glanced up. It took him a moment to make out Skull on the top deck of the stand. Harris had been ill-used and was clearly exhausted. He was covered in bruises and blood, though Vadim hoped that not too much of the blood was his own. New Boy didn’t look much better.

“Were either of you bit?” he asked.

“No,” New Boy told him.

“Which is a goddamned miracle,” Harris said shaking his head.

“No,” Vadim told him. “It’s because you fought, because you wanted to live. I know you’ve been through hell, but I have six prisoners in the main hall; can you keep an eye on them until we ask you to bring them out? They give you the slightest trouble, just kill them.”

Harris nodded wearily.

“Clear!” Gulag called from the second prefab. Princess repeated the call from the third prefab, and the Fräulein did the same from the fourth. Gulag, grim-faced, emerged from the hut and walked across the yard towards them. There were bullet holes in the grey SS smock he had worn to try and fool the re-enactors, and his head looked somehow more misshapen, as if a chunk were missing from it. Vadim noted that both his thumbs were red and blood was dripping off his face. He wondered just how traumatised the rescued children would be. The Muscovite didn’t have any prisoners.