By the Blood of Heroes (32 page)

No one was paying them any attention.

He heard Manning firing out the back of the truck and decided that he was going to look to see what he was aiming at. The idea that Richthofen might have gotten back up after being run down by a two-ton lorry was a reality he just didn’t want to face right now. Instead, he threw the truck into drive and went to look for Captain Burke.

T
he guards in the next room had been warned by the previous gunshot, so they were already rushing toward the steps leading to the door even as Burke came through it. At the sight of him, they skidded to a halt on the wooden floor, raised their guns, and opened fire.

Bullets were whipping through the air and plinging off the metal steps around him, but none found their mark. Even as he fired back he knew he couldn’t stay there; eventually one of those shots would find its target. Unable to move forward due to the enemy soldiers in front of him and unable to move back due to having Williams immediately behind, Burke did the only thing he could think of.

He vaulted over the railing and disappeared over the side.

It was a good fifteen-foot drop to the floor, but it felt like nothing after the experiences he’d endured lately, including leaping out of an airship that was plunging to the ground from twenty thousand feet.

He hit the ground, rolled, and came up shooting. With Williams using the door frame at the top of the steps for cover as he fired downward and Burke firing from the side where he was partially shielded by the staircase, the German soldiers didn’t last long at all.

But it was the sight that met Burke’s eyes when he looked up from the bodies of the men he’d just killed and over to the floor of the assembly line that made him swear aloud.

“Sonofabitch! What’s wrong with these people?” he asked no one in particular.

The assembly-line workers hadn’t left their posts, not when the bullets starting flying nor when two of their numbers were struck and knocked to the ground by errant shots. They were still standing there, carrying out their tasks, without even looking in the direction of the firefight.

Burke’s companions joined him on the assembly-line floor and cautiously moved closer, weapons at the ready.

It was Graves who figured it out first.

“They’re shamblers!” he whispered suddenly, bringing the whole group up short. He pointed at their faces. “Look at their eyes! And their mouths!”

A glance was all it took.

The eyes, like their mouths, had been sewn shut.

“Sweet Jesus!” Freeman said, and that about summed it up for Burke too.

Now that Graves had pointed it out, it was clear that the things working the machines in front of them were no longer human. Their bodies were in different stages of decomposition and they were chained to the tables at which they worked tirelessly to create the gas-filled shells that the German army used all along the front.

Burke felt only revulsion for the creatures before him. Things like that didn’t deserve to walk the earth, and he intended to take as many of them with him as he could. He turned to Williams and said, “Let’s set the charges and get the hell out of here.”

Freeman stood guard while Williams and Burke moved through the room, carefully placing the twelve charges where they thought they would do the most good.

After placing the explosives, Burke moved back through the room twisting the dials on all the timers, setting them for five minutes. Freeman and Williams were already waiting at the stairs when Burke gave the setup one last glance and then hurried to join them.

Professor Graves, however, was nowhere to be found.

“You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me!” Burke said and began to run back along the assembly line, looking for Graves. He found him examining one of the shamblers up close, way too close, and Burke kept waiting for the thing to spin around and attack. He grabbed Graves by the arm and started to pull him across the room.

“No! You don’t understand,” he cried. “We can learn so much this way!”

Burke was as unrelenting as the clock that was ticking its way down. “There are twelve explosives about to blow this place sky-high, and if it’s all right with you, I’d rather not be here when that happens.”

The word
explosives
was what did it. Graves suddenly snapped out of his dazed fascination with the creatures around him and rushed toward where the others were waiting.

“Let’s get out of here!” he said, racing past Freeman and taking the steps two at a time.

The rest of them followed rapidly on his heels.

They burst through the door at the end of the hall and slammed to a halt.

The massive airship they’d seen on entering the building still loomed over the horizon, but now it was completely ablaze. Lurid red and yellow flames danced about its frame, casting back the darkness and lighting up the night sky like a beacon. Even as they watched, small explosions enveloped parts of the vessel where the flames had eaten their way through the skin and reached the gas bags inside.

They were so caught up in the horrid beauty of the sight that they didn’t notice the oncoming truck until it squealed to a halt in front of them. Burke instinctively stepped in front of Freeman, though how he would have protected him if the truck turned out to be full of enemy soldiers he didn’t know.

“Get in!” Charlie shouted from his place behind the wheel. “They’re right behind us!”

The four men scrambled to comply. Freeman, Graves, and Williams rushed to the rear of the truck, where the rest of the men pulled them inside, while Burke scrambled up into the front passenger seat next to Charlie.

“Go! Go!” he cried, but Charlie needed no urging. He slammed the truck into gear and mashed his foot down on the accelerator. The tires spun for a second in the loose gravel that served as the base’s roads and then they caught, sending them speeding away from the laboratory.

Burke stuck his head out the window, looking back, and was just in time to see part of the building’s roof blow off as the explosives they’d set went off with a bang. The shock wave caught up with them a second later, pushing them along in a blast of superheated air.

“No hiding from them now!” Charlie shouted, as several more explosions rocked the night.

The scene around them was chaos. Men were running in several directions, responding to the shouted commands of their officers. Many probably didn’t even know what was going on but were simply reacting to the need to do something, anything, in the wake of what looked like an attack by Allied or partisan forces. Trucks raced by, headed in the opposite direction. Burke knew it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed that they were racing away from the commotion.

Charlie smoothly maneuvered the lorry through the chaos, headed back toward the residence where they had left the staff car, hoping to pick it up again before heading on. Their plans were disrupted, however, when they turned the corner and saw a group of individuals gathered together outside the manor house.

“Don’t stop!” Burke said urgently, and Charlie shifted up, accelerating them past the group as quickly as possible.

Burke glanced out the window, taking in the crowd and searching for any sign of Richthofen.

He didn’t have to look far.

Richthofen’s gaze locked with his own, and in the dead man’s eyes Burke caught a glimpse of hell itself as the other man realized who they were.

“Shit!”

“What?” Charlie asked.

“Richthofen!”

Charlie made a couple of quick turns and suddenly the front gate flashed into view.

“Here we go!” he shouted over his shoulder to the rest of the team in the back. He pointed the truck at the center of the gate, intending to drive right through it, closed or not.

Recognizing his intentions, the sentries at the gate began firing at the lorry. Most of the shots missed, but a few slammed into the grille across the front of the truck and one tore away the mirror on Burke’s side of the vehicle.

The gate loomed large in the windshield, and Burke steadied himself with a hand on the dash and his feet flat on the floor.

“Brace yourself!” Charlie cried.

They hit the gate doing a good fifty miles per hour and smashed through it with ease, the tires bouncing over its remains before biting into the surface of the road again.

Burke looked at Charlie and let out a whoop of excitement. “We’re through!”

The open road stretched out before them, and Burke imagined that they might just make it out after all.

At least until the shooting started behind them.

Chapter Forty-two

OUTSIDE THE GATES

B
ullets slammed into the tailgate of the truck as the thunder of a light machine gun split the night.

Charlie yanked the wheel to the right, taking them out of the line of fire, and giving Burke a chance to look behind them at the bad news waiting there.

They were being pursued by several smaller armored vehicles, both of which were faster and easier to maneuver than their own two-ton truck. The AVs were accompanied by a black staff car that looked similar to the one they’d used to bluff their way onto the base, except this one had Richthofen’s personal crest, a two-headed eagle looming over a pair of skulls, on the front doors.

Both the armored vehicles sported light machine guns, and as Burke pulled his head back in the truck the guns opened up again, hammering the fleeing vehicle and causing those in the back to flatten themselves against the floorboard hoping like hell they wouldn’t get hit.

A series of turns came into view ahead of them, forcing Charlie to slow down slightly to negotiate the narrow road and allowing the lead vehicle to catch up with them slightly. The machine gun went off again, stitching holes up and down the fabric that covered the cargo area where the rest of the team were hiding out.

The AV driver pulled up directly behind the lorry, the gunner aiming the machine gun across the cargo area at Sergeant Moore’s unprotected back, waiting to get it lined up perfectly before he took the shot . . .

Manning popped up in the back of the truck and snapped off a shot from his pistol that took the gunner right in the face. The driver swerved away and fell back a few yards.

The driver of the second AV was apparently braver than the first, for he took the opportunity to close the distance with the lorry. The machine gunner lit up the night sky with a blast from his weapon, joined by two other soldiers who leaned out the side windows and fired at them whenever opportunity allowed.

Burke’s men responded by laying down their own barrage of rifle fire from the back of the lorry, the barrels of their weapons pointed over the tailgate.

Sergeant Moore continued to do his part, swerving the lorry back and forth across the road at unexpected intervals, trying to keep the enemy from catching them in a concerted stream of fire.

“We’re not going to make it,” Charlie shouted. “Not like this anyway.”

Burke knew he was right. Their pursuers knew the roads and local area. If they were in communication with any other units, which was highly likely, they could easily coordinate a joint effort to run the fugitives to ground. Burke and his squad would be intercepted long before they could reach the front.

They needed to throw their pursuers off their trail long enough to find an alternate means of escape.

“When I tell you, I want you to hold it steady for a sec,” Burke shouted back.

Charlie nodded.

Burke turned, then yelled at Compton so he could be heard over the sound of the gunfire.

“We need to stop those AVs!” he shouted. “Do you still have those grenades Professor Graves created?”

Compton nodded.

“Here’s what we’re going to do . . .”

When Burke was finished, Compton flashed him a thumbs-up and disappeared back to the tailgate of the truck to pass the word to the others.

Burke waited a few seconds, wanting to gauge the timing just right. When Charlie hit a straightaway, he yelled, “Now!”

As one, Compton and the other men pulled the pins on the magnetic grenades in their hands, counted to three, and then dropped the devices out the back of the truck.

The explosives rolled down the street toward the pursuing vehicles as Charlie stomped on the gas pedal, trying to coax a little more speed from the already laboring engine.

Burke watched as the grenades rolled beneath the pursuing vehicles. He saw a brief flash from beneath their frames and in the next second their forward momentum was stolen completely as the now magnetically charged ground beneath them seemed to reach up and grab the iron frames of the trucks like a vise, bringing them to an immediate, shuddering halt. Frames crumpled and tires blew as the opposing forces fought against each other. He half expected bodies to come flying out the windshields from the sudden transference of g-forces, but then realized that they, too, would likely be struggling to lift themselves off the floor of the vehicle as the magnetic force acted on anything metallic that they were wearing.

For just a second, he felt a tug back in the direction of the wreckage as the magnetic charge tried to ensnare them as well, but the distance was too great and they broke free. Burke couldn’t see what happened to the staff car behind the AVs, but was confident that they had gained a few minutes’ advantage. The dense forest on either side of the road wouldn’t let Richthofen’s car pass, and the wreckage of the trucks would be immovable until the magnetic charge wore off.

It might only last for a few minutes, but even that would give them some time and distance to come up with a plan.

The solution must have occurred to him and Charlie at the same time. They looked at each other, the same thought running through their heads.
We need a decoy to lead pursuit away from the rest of the group . . .

“I’ll do it,” they said simultaneously.

Charlie barely slowed as he whipped the truck around a hairpin turn and then stomped back down on the pedal as they hit the next straightaway. Without taking his eyes off the road he said, “Sorry, sir, but I can’t let you do that. Somebody’s going to have to lead the team all the way back to the front, and you’ve got a better chance of holding them together under pressure than I do.”

Burke braced himself as they jolted over several bumps in the road.

“If you think I’m going to just leave you behind after all we’ve been through . . .”

Charlie cut him off. “With all due respect, you don’t have a choice. You need to get Freeman and the information he has back to the other side or none of this will matter.”

He was right; Burke knew it, too. But that didn’t make it any easier.

The big sergeant glanced at Burke and smiled. “I’ll meet you farther down the line. Just be ready to pick me up when the time comes.”

They both knew it would take a miracle for him to do so once he drew the pursuit vehicles away from the rest of the squad. The enemy troops would run him down and shoot him on sight once they had.

Charlie didn’t stand a chance.

No way was Burke going to admit that though. His friend deserved better, and if it helped him make the sacrifice he was about to make, Burke would happily plan their reunion if that’s what Charlie wanted.

The grenades they’d dumped in the road gave them a bit of distance from their pursuers, but it wouldn’t be long before they would catch up again. If they were going to do this, it was now or never.

“There’s a big partisan group near Reims. Make your way to them. They’ll take you in and should be able to get word to us that you made it out all right.”

“Will do.” Charlie stuck out his hand. “Good luck.”

Burke gripped his friend’s hand tightly, then turned and spread the word to the others in the back of the truck. They held on as Charlie took them through series of turns and then brought the truck to a screeching halt.

“Go!” he shouted.

Burke didn’t waste any time with further good-byes, just flung open his door and scrambled out of the truck. The rest of the men were piling out of the back at the same time and he counted heads as they joined him, only to come up one short. Glancing back toward the cab, he saw Manning climbing into the passenger seat beside Sergeant Moore.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted. “We’ve got to go!”

“Sorry, Captain,” Manning replied. “I’ve still got a shot at bagging that bastard Richthofen and I’m going to take it. Give my regards to Colonel Nichols when you see him.”

Before Burke could say another word, Charlie threw the truck into gear and slammed his foot down on the accelerator. No sooner had he sped off than lights appeared on the road behind them in the distance.

“Into the woods! Hurry!” Burke cried, waiting for all his men to head out before turning and running like hell for the safety of the trees.

Burke paused in the darkness around them and watched as the enemy sped past in a pair of lorries and Richthofen’s staff car. At the speed that they were going, he estimated that Charlie had a two-, maybe three-minute lead on his pursuers.

That wasn’t much. Charlie was going to need every trick in the book to get away.

Burke tried to get one last glimpse of the fleeing vehicle through the trees, but it was already out of sight.

“Godspeed, my friend,” he whispered into the darkness.

It took Burke ten minutes to catch up with the others, at which point he called a quick break. He put two of them on guard and let the others grab a few minutes of rest while he tried to figure out their next course of action.

Time was of the essence. Sergeant Moore and Clayton Manning wouldn’t be able to hold off their pursuers indefinitely. At some point, Richthofen would discover that he had been duped and the hunt would be on for Burke and the rest of his men. They needed to be miles away before that happened.

Their options were limited, however. Roads in this region were few, and all the previous traffic they’d seen had been military in nature. Burke had no objection to hijacking a truck if the opportunity arose, but the problem with that strategy was that they hadn’t seen a single vehicle traveling on its own all the way from Stalag 113 to the testing facility in Verdun.

The more vehicles there were, the more soldiers they’d have to face. No, there had to be another way to . . .

“Why do I get the feeling that this wasn’t part of the plan?”

Burke looked up from the map to find Jack watching him steadily and waiting for an answer. His half brother had pitched his voice low enough that the rest of the men wouldn’t hear his comment, which Burke appreciated. Not that such subterfuge was necessary; Burke’s men knew the plan had been screwed the minute the
Victorious
had been shot out from underneath them.

Seeing no reason not to tell the truth, Burke said, “Because it wasn’t. We were supposed to rendezvous with the British airship that brought us behind the lines.”

“And we’re not doing that now because?”

“Because the Boche shot it down.”

He turned back to the map, running his finger along a possible route that might get them a few miles farther from the camp without exposing them.
If they stuck to the woods, they might be able to get as far as . . .

“I don’t want to tell you your business, but have you thought about the train?”

Burke stopped and looked up.

“The train?”

Jack nodded. “The one that was parked behind the gas factory when you arrived at the camp.”

Burke had no idea what Jack was talking about. “Show me,” he said, handing him the map.