David Robbins - Last Citadel

Grimm had not found a staff car quickly enough to suit Breit. Instead, a motorcycle courier was given orders to carry the colonel to Slatino’s aerodrome as fast as possible. Perhaps this was the major’s way of giving Breit back a fuck you. For the eighty-kilometer journey, Breit had ridden in an open sidecar over busted roads, pontoon bridges, and dirt tracks. He wore goggles and held on with white knuckles. He could not smoke for the entire insane trip, the driver was determined to make the best time and showcase his motorcycle skill to the colonel.

Now, Breit stood from the idling sidecar. He looked down at his uniform, matted with dirt and grease kicked up by the wheels of vehicles the motorcycle passed. Pulling the goggles from his eyes, he felt a seal of grime and sweat break on his cheeks. He imagined himself to be the image of the German combat officer, filthy, a man of action, like a picture of Rommel.

The driver was doubly dirty and grinning. He’d gunned the motorcycle right to the steps of the waiting Heinkel in H-16 bomber. The plane’s motors fired the moment the motorcycle stopped. The props began to spin, the sound of the cranking engines drowned out the motorcycle. Breit let himself be amused at how much Germany assisted him in duping her.

The courier saluted and spun away. Breit stood in the prop wash, hoping some of the dust would blow off him. A pilot appeared in the doorway, waving him up. Breit nodded and climbed the steps.

He took his seat. The crew left him alone in the belly of the plane. Breit carried no briefcase or papers with him. This helped give the impression of a top-secret mission, that the information could only be carried safely in his brain. In truth, there was nothing he needed to haul back to Berlin to show Hitler and his staff. Breit would simply give the Führer a progress briefing on Citadel, almost a courtesy call. He might get scolded for taking Hitler’s time, perhaps not, and would simply hop a plane and fly back to Belgorod and his map table.

First, he would visit the museum.

The flight to Berlin would cover two thousand kilometers and take five hours. Breit would arrive after three in the morning. Time to have his uniform cleaned, catch a few hours of sleep, then go to the Reichs Chancellery. Perhaps Hitler would not even be in Berlin when he got there. The Führer might decide to head for East Prussia in the morning. Who knows with that man? He had too much power, too many people around him saying ‘Yes.’ Hitler lived in a fantasy world, a world of conquest and German hegemony. Sometimes from the looks of him he seemed to live in hell. It was perverse that Abram Breit, the spy, was the only person Hitler could talk to for the truth about the war and what was happening to Germany. The lone man in his presence Hitler could trust was one who was betraying him.

The bomber revved and rumbled to the runway. The plane shook its rivets and sprinted ahead, lifting off. Breit gazed out his window over the wing at Russia letting go. He felt no allegiance to this land he was helping, this backward, unfinished place. He was a German, and what he was doing, he did for Germany. Russia was nothing but a tool for the changes he and others saw must come about.

Breit sat back, listening to the droning, rising plane. He lit his first cigarette in over an hour. The bomber gained altitude. The country below became immense, tinged crimson by the coming dusk. Breit looked away. It was too much, to think that he was affecting all this, to a thousand horizons.

A German bomber, flying west without escort. The Russian hunting pack must have licked its chops.

The Heinkel bristled with gunnery. It bore twin turrets in the belly, one in the nose, and one up top. Every barrel raged at the streaking Soviet fighters. Breit pressed his face to the window. He couldn’t get a count of the Yaks, they banked so tightly and blasted back in, they seemed to be everywhere. He guessed there were three or four, no, five, then cursed his own need for numbers. The bomber’s engines wailed and his seat tilted steep, the bomber’s pilot rolled the plane hard to the north, back toward the Slatino airfield and closer to air cover. Breit’s breathing scraped in his throat, his lungs worked so hard they made his eyes and head hurt. He’d never been shot at before. The noise was deafening, there were machine-guns and cannons barking, roaring engines on all sides, baying around him like wolves at night. Breit didn’t know what to do – hold on, grab a gun, scream – he locked his eyes on the sky and the ripping contrails of the Soviet fighters’ wings.

The bomber dove for the ground, trying to gain speed. Breit’s seat dipped and rolled. Vomit soured on his tongue. Over his head a sound like a freight train and a buzz saw all at once made him raise his eyes from the slanting floor to his window. The silvery cross of a Yak fighter leveled at him and came straight up the bomber’s wing. He watched the sparks of the fighter’s cannon wink at him, a wry death. The pass was over in a second but he had time for horror watching the fighter stamp holes in the bomber’s wing and blow up the starboard engine.

The Heinkel rocked and dipped. The pilot corrected but the plane was sluggish. Smoke coursed out of the engine, the rightside prop locked up and stopped, looking very wrong this high in the sky. He smelled flame engulfing the ruined engine, he saw smoke streaming in through punctures in the fuselage. He noted that the turret above the cockpit had gone silent. The bomber’s other guns continued to rail, but the raw numbers and facts of Breit’s predicament asserted themselves through his shock and fear. It was inevitable that the bomber and everyone inside were going to be cut to pieces by these flashing Soviet planes.

In that moment, he had his proof. One of the crew careened down the aisle to his seat, hauling two parachute packs. Panic warped the young man’s face. Blood spattered his cheeks and neck. The airman slung a chute into Breit’s lap. Breit had to pry his hands from the seat arms to catch it.

The crewman shouted, ‘Put it on! We’re getting out! Now!’

Breit hesitated. How do you do this? he wondered, too frightened to even open his mouth to ask. He’d never had any jump training, why would he?

The crewman hauled the second knapsack over his own shoulders, jamming his arms through two straps. He reached down between his legs for two dangling belts, grabbed them, and clicked one each into the shoulder straps to form a harness.

‘Get up!’ the man yelled.

Breit undid his seat belt. He stood, unsure if his legs would hold him on the listing floor. He slid the pack over his own shoulders and aped what the airman had done, clicking his arms and waist into the straps. A scarlet light blinked over his empty seat. The whole crew, those still alive, were bailing out.

The crewman staggered to the door in the plane’s midsection. With a strong twirl of a fat handle, he yanked the portal open. He stepped to the threshold. Breit moved close behind him, crowding. He was stricken with fear, his movements were automatic. He had no idea what to do except whatever this crewman did. Wind whipped past in a deafening rush. The engine, seen now not through a window but dead ahead in the same windy, horrifying world as Breit, trailed a seam of smoke for kilometers behind them.

The crewman laid both hands under Breit’s straps and with urgent tugs tightened everything on the parachute around Breit’s shoulders and hips. He pounded a fist, on a handle attached over Breit’s heart.

He took Breit in both fists and jerked him closer, almost as though to begin a fight, and bellowed. ‘Pull this when you get clear of the plane!’