Page 14 (1/2)

1945

MAY 4

6:22 AM

FORTRESS CITY OF BRESLAU, POLAND

The body floated in the sludge that sluiced through the dank sewers The corpse of a boy, bloated and rat gnawed, had been stripped of boots, pants, and shirt Nothing went to waste in the besieged city

SS Obergruppenfuhrer Jakob Sporrenberg nudged past the corpse, stirring the filth Offal and excrement Blood and bile The wet scarf tied around his nose and reat war had coh sewers to escape But he had his orders

Overhead the double crump-wump of Russian artillery puut with its concussive shock The Russians had broken down the gates, boround down the cobbled streets while transport carriers landed on Kaiserstrasse Thestrip by parallelrows of fla their s dawn at bay Fighting waged in every street, in every home, from attic to basement

Every house a fortress

That had been Gaufefter Hanke's final co as possible The future of the Third Reich depended on it

And on Jakob Sporrenberg

"Mach schneff,'he urged the others behind him

His unit of the Sicherheitsdienst—designation Special Evacuation Kommando—trailed him, knee-deep in filthy water Fourteen men All armed All dressed in black All burdened with heavy packs In the est men, for aloft massive crates

There was a reason the Russians were striking this lone city deep in the Sudeten Mountains between Gerateway to the highlands beyond For the past two years, forced labor from the concentration ca mountain peak A hundred kilometers of tunnels clawed and blasted, all to service one secret project, one kept buried away fro Allied eyes

Die Riese…the Giant

But word had still spread Perhaps one of the villagers outside the Wenceslas Mine had whispered of the illness, the sudden malaise that had afflicted even those well outside the complex

If only they'd had more time to complete the research…

Still, a part of Jakob Sporrenberg balked He didn't know all that was involved with the secret project, h He had seen the bodies used in the experiments He had heard the screams

Abomination