“Run as fast as you can.” He sprinted off, with Linda keeping a steady pace behind.
Corporal Bruener clicked his walkie-talkie, “We have located the intruders on the first floor near the entrance.” He gestured and the police took off after them.
Wayne and Linda darted past the huge German bomber, knocking technicians, busy at work, out of their way.
Not far behind the intruders, a Nazi
With a cluster of more Nazi military policemen gaining ground on them, Wayne was aware that his only chance was to escape the building. He came upon a red emergency door exit. “Excellent,” he said and tried to pry it open. “Jesus,” he vented his frustration and pounded a fist on the door.
“I see a staircase over there,” Linda urged. A bullet hit the emergency exit door a mere two inches above her head.
“Go!” They ran into the stairway and moved up the steps. “We have to get out of this damn complex,” he said between puffs.
“I’m taking out any of those Nazi bastards that I can,” Linda grasped her pistol tightly.
Corporal Bruener, a squinty-eyed slender man of average height, and a squad of military policemen, their weapons drawn, entered the stairway taking three steps at a time. Just as he turned the corner, the Corporal saw the passageway door shut.
“Ah, yes,” the Corporal said self-satisfactorily in his low voice, “they are not as smart as they think.”
An alert military policeman pressed, “Sir, are you sure it’s not a trap?” Corporal Bruener, unlike most of the men of his rank, lent an open ear to his subordinate’s opinions.
“Spread out. Consider them armed and dangerous. Max and Bernhard, with me.” The Corporal and his two extensively trained men strutted into the fourth floor corridor as the others continued moving speedily up the stairs.
Bruener and his goons, firearms cocked quietly swept into a room with a heavy leaded glass wall. A silhouette shifted across the wall; he had the same build as Wayne. Bruener, never shy about taking credit for his good actions, situated his gun on the murky figure in the room and fired. The glass crumbled.
“Are you crazy?” the injured man, who had been shot in the left thigh cried out. The Corporal frowned and looked down at the scientist. His walkie-talkie chirped.
“Bruener, report!”
“We are narrowing in on the intruders, sir,” Bruener responded.
“State your position,” the powerful voice beamed through the communication device.
“Floor four, south wing.”
“Carry on. Over.”
Bruener clipped his walkie-talkie back onto his black leather-banded utility belt. He waved his men on.
Wayne and Linda frantically tried to open any door on the fourth floor as they rushed down the hall. All of them, though, had been automatically locked by the building’s advanced security system. Turning a bend in the hallway, into the east wing, Wayne spotted a fire extinguisher.
“When I turn this on, grab any guns that you can,” he told Linda.
“Sir,” one of the military policemen uttered, drawing his superior’s attention to a welcome sight across the way. The search was over.
The pack of Nazis roved into the east wing corridor. They were greeted with a spray of foamy white, chemically based fire retardant. Their hands went to their eyes as they screamed in pain. Their weapons dropped to the ground as they were covered head to toe in the white foam until they resembled Nazi Snowmen.
Linda snatched up the pistols off the floor and wedged one into the waist of her pants. She handed the other to Wayne.
Two more guards rounded the corner with their guns raised to fire. Linda popped hers off first and shot one of them in the head. The other guard leaned out of cover quickly and fired, missing both of them. Linda attempted to fire again, but her gun jammed.
The guard heard the clicking of a jammed weapon and stepped out of cover. He aimed at Linda, but before he could fire Wayne shot at him and missed. In the time it took for the guard to realize that Wayne had missed; he and Linda were already through the door with machine gun fire echoing behind them.
Another pair of well-armed military policemen arrived on the scene. “Have they been located?” one asked.
The private nodded at the broken glass, then kicked out the remaining pieces that were still attached to the door frame.
The three men cautiously entered the room, coming into a large area that functioned as an administrative office, complete with computer terminals, bland desks, and unattractive file cabinets.
They wandered slowly, light on their feet, searching for their prey. Nothing stirred. The military policemen roamed past one of the six bulky metal desks present in the room, which seemed to be laid out in a random configuration.
Wayne pushed a rolling desk chair smack into one of the guard’s spidery legs. The guard tripped back against his partner and they both tumbled to the ground.
Linda, hiding behind a tall beige file cabinet, shoved the heavy organizer onto them as they fell.
Wayne turned his gun on the remaining military policeman. “Don’t move, asshole,” he said simply.
The guard didn’t hesitate. With a lightning-quick jerk of his foot, he kicked the weapon out of Wayne’s hand and jumped him.
“Fucking swine,” he growled. His partner, having freed himself from the filing cabinet, jabbed his closed fist into Wayne’s face, giving him a taste of his own blood.
The third man stood up carefully and as Linda turned to take his gun, he grabbed Linda’s right leg and twisted it. She collapsed to the floor.
The private pulled her hair and snickered, “You want to play games, bitch? Is that what you want?” He elbowed her in the mouth hard. He grinned sadistically.
“How about one more, you troublemaking bitch?” He swung back about to elbow her again when she rammed her foot into his crotch. He groaned in pain and released his grip on Linda as he curled into the fetal position.
“How’s about one more, you Nazi piece of shit?” Linda sarcastically said as she whacked him again.
She snatched the private’s gun from him, stood up, and aimed the firearm at the military policemen, busy dishing out their own brand of punishment, on top of Wayne.
“Get off of him,” she instructed them.
The military policemen did as ordered and backed up. After a moment of truce, one man lunged forward at Linda. She didn’t wait a second and he was promptly shot in the gut. He fell to the ground groaning in pain. His partner, not nearly as brave a man, stood in place and swallowed hard.
“Head or tails?” Linda asked Wayne.
Wayne shot back, “Linda, we have to get the fuck out of here!”
“Heads or tails?” she repeated.
“Tails.”
“You lose,” Linda wryly informed her target and fired.
“Are you happy now?” Wayne asked.
The private, who was spread out on the floor, took a small pineapple shaped hand grenade from his holster and pulled the pin on it. There could be no greater honor to bestow upon oneself than to die in the course of carrying out one’s duty for the Reich. The private began to laugh deliriously.
“Wayne,” Linda called out, “Grenade!”
“Go!” Wayne sprinted for the door.
Linda grabbed the grenade.
Wayne screams, “What are you doing!” Linda drops the grenade quickly and Wayne yanks her out of the room.
A platoon of military policemen was swiftly converging on the intruders.
Wayne unwound a long burlap fire hose from its resting place on the corridor wall. “Jump on my back,” he
