shouted at Linda. The pack of policemen drew closer.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but it better be good,” Linda said and hopped on Wayne’s back.
Wayne, clinging to the hose with all of his available strength, crawled over the balcony.
A great explosion emanated from the administrative room on the fourth floor, rocking the hallway, and killing most of the platoon.
Wayne tumbled, with his passenger, down to the first story. A bullet whizzed by them. Wayne couldn’t tell where it came from, but he didn’t really care. What mattered to him was that it hadn’t either of them.
“Keep low,” Wayne muttered as they kept moving. BANG.
“I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot!” he yelled as blood stained his shirt. He ripped off his shirt sleeve.
“I think it’s just a graze,” Linda said tying the sleeve tightly around his arm.
“Well, it hurts like a motherfucker,” Wayne retorted. “Let’s get over by that plane. I have a plan.”
Wayne and Linda approached the massive German bomber. The technicians and engineers whom had been working around and on it had scattered when the emergency siren went off. Wayne spotted a woman pointing a rifle at him from the balcony and took a dive. Linda fired off a shot at her. The military policewoman fell over the balcony, dead.
The fugitives made their way to the huge military aircraft and ducked under its fuselage. The bullets suddenly stopped for fear of hitting the bomber itself. Wayne looked up to see an open panel that revealed part of the plane’s complex engine. He gloated at the sight.
“What do you have in mind?” Linda asked.
From his lab coat’s side pocket, Wayne removed the pocketknife, which he had lifted from the chemist’s workshop.
He said, “I figure our chances of getting out of here are a lot better if this place is in total chaos.”
He put the knife’s sharp edge up to the plane’s fuel line. Before he was able to cut it, Corporal Bruener pulled him into a headlock from behind, fire retardant still smeared on his coat.
“Cut the red one,” Wayne squeaked as he handed the knife to Linda.
Bruener’s grip tightened around Wayne’s neck as he struggled to reach Linda too.
With one expeditious movement, Linda slashed the fuel line. Gasoline started streaming down from the plane.
Wayne slammed the Corporal’s body into the plane’s mammoth wing as hard he could. Wayne twisted the Nazi’s arm behind his back and pinned him against the plane, directly underneath the broken fuel line. The Corporal coughed as his hair and clothes became soaked with kerosene.
Bruener knocked his head against Wayne’s, liberating himself. He quickly took out a ten-inch steel knife from its sheath. “Are we having fun yet?” he smirked.
Linda grabbed the book of matches out of her pocket and opened it up. One match remained. Corporal Bruener lunged forward but missed Wayne as he darted to the side.
Ripping the last match from its cover, Linda struck it lit, and tossed the burning match onto him. He became a human torch as flames consumed his body. Bruener screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Surprise, surprise, surprise,” Wayne said in his best Gomer Pyle drawl. Wayne kicked the flaming Nazi into the increasing puddle of fuel, igniting the immediate area into flames. Fire spread onto the bomber’s fuel line, and it started to burn like the fuse to a stick of dynamite.
“It’s gonna explode! Run!” Wayne yelled.
With a swarm of immaculately dressed Nazi privates and military policemen ascending upon the scene, the great Reich bomber’s main fuel tank exploded with a monstrous immensity as Wayne and Linda ran for their lives.
Aircraft debris hit every nook and cranny of the building. Each person who was within one hundred feet of the plane, at the time of the explosion, would be left with a permanent hearing impairment, if they were lucky enough to be alive. Thirty seconds after the first burst, a second, but equally disastrous, explosion rocked the burning, metal bird as the reserve fuel tank exploded. Pandemonium broke out as the force of the explosions caused bodies to go flying and a number of men to experience painful third degree burns. A young private, fresh out of training academy, only six meters distant from the bomber and engulfed in flames, cried out, “HELP! I’M ON FIRE! WATER…” before his voice went forever silent. A fire alarm sounded as smoke filled the air, adding to the orchestra of noise. The water sprinklers that worked did little to help the situation.
The fugitives raced up the steps of a stairway and exited at the third floor.
“What are we doing?” Linda inquired.
“What?” Wayne loudly said, his ears ringing badly.
“Why are we up here?” Linda spoke in his ear.
“Because there’s no fucking way we’re getting out of here on that bottom floor.” The rapidly increasing amount of thick smoke began to make Wayne cough incessantly.
“The best bet is for us to get out of this building before we choke,” he said. He attempted to turn the doorknob on a room door. It wouldn’t turn.
“Stand back,” Linda said. She pointed her pistol at the lock and fired three shots, demolishing it.
As they sprinted into a small storage room, Wayne peered through the dense vapor to see if any Nazis were on their tails. None appeared to be.
Linda looked out the window.
“Oh,” she said.
“Beautiful,” Wayne agreed. With a swift, strong kick, he broke the glass. “Go first.”
“Why me first?” she said startled.
“So you can break my fall.”
“That’s thoughtful of you.”
Another massive explosion caused the entire building to tremble.
“GO! JUMP!” Wayne yelped.
Linda leaped from the room and landed on the outside of the back of the building, in a trash dumpster piled high with rubbish. Wayne, without faltering, next took the plunge, landing beside her. Climbing out of the dumpster, Wayne felt the precious vial of Gadolinium Crystals to make sure that it was intact. It was.
Fire trucks blanketed the front of the huge, flaming building. Firemen went to work with their hoses and ladders.
“Well, hotshot, what do you suppose we do now?”
“The quickest way to get back to the city will be by airplane. This is a military base. Let’s go find ourselves a plane before they figure out that we’re still alive.”
“Just like that, you think we’ll find a plane?”
“We have to. It’s only a matter of time before they have an army out here searching for us. We’ll never make it on foot and we’d be spotted too easily in a vehicle.”
Wayne headed toward a small, red military jeep. He hopped in and ran his hand under the dashboard and fiddled with some of its wires.
“Those crystals of yours better be pretty damned important if we went through all this shit for them,” Linda complained.
“I told you why I need them,” Wayne said as Linda climbed in. He peeked at the wires below the dashboard. He touched two wires together and the jeep’s engine purred to life.
“Ah, the things you learn in Brooklyn.” Wayne shifted the vehicle into first gear and drove away from the burning building and the mass of black smoke rising above it. In the rearview mirror, the sun was setting.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At base headquarters, the SS-
He shouted with indignation, “Find out who is responsible for causing this trouble on my base. I want his head.”
