The Abaddon Stone.

By DW Mace

Those who had possessed the beautiful Garnet gem imagined that the flickering spark in its heart was merely a reflection of the light... but Charlotte Mckenna knows otherwise.
She is aware that it is the manifestation of the pestilential will of a legendary Dreadful Dark Entity that was once called "Baelar"... "Lord of The Underdark."
Her adventures begin here, as she strives to track down the whereabouts of the malignant Gem that has come to be known as "The Abaddon Stone," and is whispered to be "A Destroyer of Worlds."
It was inadvertently released from its ancient, sealed metallic prison by a toolmaker in the machine shops of Krupps Armaments in Essen, Germany on the eve of The Second World War.
Five terrible years have now passed since the stone was unleashed.
Charlotte Mckenna's quest is to seek out this dreadful Garnet and destroy it before it wreaks its evil, destructive power upon Mankind once again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DW Mace
• Release date: Sep 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465940179

DW Mace

I'm Dave. I am writing my seventh novel at present; it will also be available as a series of novellas... working on the principle that these days, readers prefer something that is quick to read... say, during a bus journey or whatever.It is the latest in an ongoing series based on my original Fantasy Trilogy "The EternalWatchtower."The trilogy has been likened to a "Tolkien on Steroids"... but is not populated with Elves and other assorted pointy-eared characters, and traces the chronicled history of a lost race, and their struggles against an overwhelming evil which threatens to destroy their very existence.It started out as a favour for a friend: (Can you do a fairy tale for the kids)... but eventually topped 400,000 words... hence the transition into a trilogy.I was born in Gloucestershire and have lived in the county all my life. I grew up surrounded by the myths and legends of "What there might be in the woods"... "What were the things that went "Bump" in the night?"... "Was that really a screech Owl ... or something else?" This proved very useful when it came to writing the first book of the Fantasy Trilogy!The son of a Country Blacksmith; I became a Police Officer, and later joined an International Aerospace Company, employed as an Avionics Quality Inspector.I hope you enjoy the trilogy and its sequels as much as I enjoy writing them.

Book preview

Part Three.

Speedbird to a Study in Complicity.

Part Four.

Falls The Shadow from a Blood-Red Sky.

Epilogue.

A Summer of Shadows Rising.

Introduction.

Many myths and legends surround the Garnet gemstone. It is believed that the Garnet is a stone of purity and truth as well as a symbol of love and compassion. The gemstones are often found along riverbanks after violent storms. It was anciently believed that they were created by the lightning of such storms, and held a spark of captured lightning within their depths. Throughout history, these stones have embraced a deep symbolism for their wearers. It is said that a Garnet was one of the twelve stones in Aaron's breastplate, representing the tribe of Judah, and that King Solomon wore Garnets when he went into battle. Legend tells that Noah used a Garnet lantern to help him steer the Ark through the darkness of the night.

Warriors down the Ages believed that the Garnet was a Talisman that would guard against injury and death, and bring them victory. Crusaders carried a red Garnet somewhere about their person, and their jewel-smiths were instructed to set the stone into signet rings, belt buckles, sword hilts and shields.

It was popular as a Talisman and protective stone, as it was believed to light up the night and protect its bearer from evil and disaster; guarding him from all perils in travelling. The myth states that when the stone begins to lose its lustre, this is the portent of imminent danger and disaster.

These myths and legends may well be true in part, or in all; but there is one Garnet that is the absolute antithesis of all of these beliefs. This Garnet is a large, seventy-carat, blood-red stone that has become known as The Abaddon Stone.

The first intimation of this malignant gem came from the pages of an ancient volume discovered in 1936, in the icy wastelands of Siberia. It was retrieved by a young German archaeologist; Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen, as a consequence of her deciphering the ancient script contained within the pages of the ancient volume.

The ancient volume told that the gem was said to have been mounted in the sword pommel of an unspeakably evil Entity who was called by name: Baelar... Lord of The Underdark. According to the ancient volume; the broken sword-hilt, complete with the Abaddon Stone still mounted in its setting, and still clutched in the claw-like severed hand of the Dark Lord, himself; had been sealed in a seamless block of metal inscribed with a monitory inscription which she had succeeded in deciphering. The inscription warned...

"Behold. Herein, is trammelled The Evil of all time.

Seek not its deliverance, for there is none.

Meddle not with this Abomination,

For it is The Destroyer of Worlds."

The volume told, that, as the sword-maker had poured the last of the metal into the mould to encase this monstrosity; he had glimpsed, deep within the heart of the Garnet, the flare of a tiny, blood-red spark of light.

Resolved not to let this appalling artefact fall into Soviet hands; Doktor von Seringen had brought it back to Germany; having destroyed her translation notes to prevent the Nazi hierarchy... and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler in particular, from ever discovering the secret of the metal block. Himmler, fascinated as he was, by mysticism, accepted that it was no more than an interesting Untermensch curiosity. He had not seen this type of metal before, and decided to have it analysed in order to establish if it might be useful as a weapons-grade material.

The block was dissected on the evening of Thursday, 31st August, 1939 in a Krupp's machine-shop in Essen, Germany. As it was exposed by the cutting away of a section of the block; the Garnet flared again with a tiny blood-red spark of light deep within its heart.

At the very moment that the Garnet flared; the clock on the workshop wall in Essen struck eight o'clock. Five hundred kilometres away to the east, at 20.00 hrs precisely; the local audience was listening to Gleiwitzer Sender... a German long-wave radio transmitter seven kilometres from the Polish border of the German-Polish frontier. The popular music programme was suddenly interrupted, and excited German voices announced that the town of Gleiwitz had been invaded by Polish irregular formations marching towards the emitting station. Then the station broadcast went dead. When the broadcast resumed, Polish was being spoken.

German army intelligence... the Abwehr; together with the SS, had put into action the first stage of Unternehmen Himmler... Operation Himmler; the first of twenty-one orchestrated incidents along the Germano-Polish border intended to give the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany.

All along the Polish border, units of the German Wehrmacht were taking their final positions for the launch of Fall Weiss... Case White... the German strategic plan for the Invasion of Poland, which would be the catalyst that unleashed The Second World War.

Thus, was the malignant influence of the terrible Abaddon Stone loosed upon humanity.

Part One.

The Funeral Pyre of Wotan's Children.

Chapter One.

The deep rumble of the big V8 engine of the Olive-drab painted Cadillac staff car echoed back from the buildings on Karwendelstrasse as it cruised across the junction at Drakestrasse, and turned into Finkensteinallee. The road was still cobbled, although many of the stones were chipped and scarred. It was still lined with the old lilac trees; bearing the scars of bullets and shell fragments in their thick trunks and lower branches. Many of the old buildings had survived the Russians' onslaught as they blasted their way into Berlin; but many new structures had appeared on the sites of their ruined predecessors. A pretty blonde girl wearing a Claire McCardell moss green wool, fitted two-piece, long-skirted suit, and a jaunty little matching Fedora, sat in the rear seat of the staff car, glancing out of the window.

Finckensteinallee was much the same as she remembered from when she had been driven down to the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Lichterfelde Kaserne in 1937, in the company of SS-Gruppenführer Wolff; the Head of Reichsführer-SS Himmler's personal staff and his Personal Adjutant and Liaison officer. Nearly ten years had passed since she was last here; as she was about to embark on Himmler's ill-fated Vanavara Protokoll expedition to Siberia. It was also two years since she had last been in Berlin. Back then; she had a different identity. Her name had been Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen; Deputy Researcher for the Deutsches Ahnenerbe Institute for Linguistic study, at Berlin-Dahlem.

The Cadillac turned into the main entrance of the old Lichterfelde Kaserne at Finckensteinallee 63, and was waved down by an American Military Policeman. Nothing much had changed at the Kaserne. The long guardhouses either side of the gate were still there; but the pair of four-metre high, Stone sentinel statues of Der Ewigen Reichsrottenführer… The Imperishable Corporals, that had flanked the gate, were missing. In their place were two towering rectangular blocks of concrete. The old Headquarters building across the checkerboard parade ground still stood; but was now minus the massive Reichsadler Eagle perched above the false portico, which no longer bore the legend Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler emblazoned boldly across its cornice.

The staff car driver handed his orders to the MP, who scanned them and glanced at the blonde in the rear seat. The subtle fragrance of her perfume created a deliciously feminine counterpoint to the masculine smell of the leather upholstery. Surreptitiously, the MP inhaled. God! Why didn't all women smell like this? Quickly, he composed himself and was once again the stern MP guardian.

'Captain Charlotte Mckenna? Welcome to Andrews Barracks, Ma'am.'

Almost two years earlier, to the day; on Thursday morning, April19th, 1945; SS-Panzerobergrenadier Jürgen Seifert was standing guard on the one-metre-square concrete plinth in front of the corner pillar supporting the open rear arcade of the guardhouse to the right of the wide main entrance gates of the Berlin-Lichterfelde Kaserne der Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler. He peered furtively up towards the sky from beneath the rim of his glossy black Stahlhelm. When mounting guard duty at the Kaserne, you were expected to stand like a statue; rigid and unmoving at attention; no matter what was happening. It was always likely that someone would be watching from the administration building across the wide parade platz stretching back from the main gate.

Nazi Germany was on the brink of defeat. After being turned back at Stalingrad, Hitler's forces had been steadily pushed back by a relentless Soviet Red Army hungry for revenge against the atrocities committed by the marauding Nazis in the east. With each successive victory, the Russians pushed ever closer to the heart of the Third Reich, and the German situation became more desperate. Allied bombers had been conducting continuous, twenty-four-hour bombing of Germany for weeks now; aiming to crush its industrial heartlands and destroy German morale.

Twenty-one-year-old Seifert became aware of a muffled hum coming from the west. He heard the distant cry of the first of the alarm sirens, very faintly... a swelling and ebbing away out towards Potsdam. As the sirens began wailing their warning at Spandau, the faint sounds of approaching aircraft grew louder and gradually rose in crescendo to become a droning roar. The Yankee Terrorfliegers were high today. He could just make out the countless little shining silver dots etching their condensation trails across the cornflower-blue sky; and watched the first black puffs of smoke appearing amongst them as the anti-aircraft shells began exploding. The sound of the flak batteries firing was almost drowned by the continuous rumble of heavy artillery away to the east, up on the Seelow Heights, a mere ninety kilometres east of Berlin, as the defenders struggled to hold back the remorselessly advancing steamroller of the Red Army that was hammering at the very Gates of Berlin. Ominously, there was also the distant sound of gunfire from the south, like the sullen thunder of a distant storm.

The dead-straight, pure-white streamers, many kilometres long in the bright blue sky, clearly indicated the track of the bombers. It looked as though the massed bomber formation was lining up to plaster the city's Government quarter again. This also meant that the big 128mm twin guns mounted on the vast, ferro-concrete, fortress-like flak towers would soon begin blasting away. These huge weapons were capable of hurling their twenty-eight kilogramme shells up to an altitude of almost fifteen thousand metres. There were three of these formidable, bomb-proof flak towers sited in a triangular defensive ring around the Berlin city centre area which encompassed the Government district; each tower being roughly the height of a thirteen-storey building topped with four gun platforms each containing a pair of the huge Rheinmetall-Borsig 128mm guns; one pair per each corner of the tower. When the eight shells exploded in the planned pattern, they had a kill zone of two hundred and forty metres across; at a firing rate of a salvo every ninety seconds. So; twenty-four of these massive weapons would be opening up at any moment. That was an awful lot of metal to be exploding in the skies above Berlin, and what goes up, must come down in the form of shrapnel and metal splinters.

The main function of the towers was not so much to shoot down the Allied bombers, although that was important; but more to put up such a mass of anti-aircraft fire as to hinder the bombing attack on the area in the immediate vicinity of the towers themselves. Each tower also contained a cellar, the ground floor and five upper floors. The cellar and ground floors were used as shelters, lit with blue lights, into which crowds of Berliners would seek refuge from the bombs when the sirens sounded. Each tower had ferro-concrete walls up to three and a half metres thick, steel window shutters; air-conditioning, and an independent, diesel-powered Daimler-Benz generating plant six metres below ground. All three had a hospital floor, and the Zoo tower had one level in which the most valuable of Berlin’s art treasures were stored. The Humboldthain tower also had passages leading down to the nearby Gesundbrunnen Station... one of the deepest in the Berlin U-Bahn system. More than twenty thousand people could take shelter in this tower and the U-Bahn tunnels.

Jürgen Seifert glanced up nervously at the bright, wide, feathery-white ribbon streaming back from the Terrorfliegers' engines, which was creeping across the sky slightly to the north of his guard duty position. The shrapnel from the exploding shells would soon be showering down on the city; and a decent-sized lump could easily kill someone if they were unfortunate enough to be hit by it. The biggest danger by far, in these raids was being hit by falling lumps of shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells. These spent pieces of shrapnel would obviously fall at the speed of gravity. They would take something like four minutes from the explosion to hitting the ground.

When the flak towers opened up; standing rigidly to attention out here would not be a healthy place to be. The Zoo flak tower... Flakturm I, which was the nearer... on the southern side of the Tiergarten fifteen kilometres to the north-east, and the primary protection for the Government quarter of the City, was not really a problem. The falling shrapnel from these guns normally showered down over Schöneberg and the northern parts of Steglitz. The main risk came from the guns of the flak tower sited in Humboldthain Park... Flakturm III; a couple of kilometres further north from the Zoo tower. Humboldthain would be firing with its guns depressed at a shallower angle, and its shell shrapnel would carry farther to the south.

The remaining flak tower... Flakturm II, was sited in Friedrichshain Park; some fourteen kilometres to the north-east from where he was standing. The shrapnel from its exploding shells would fall across Kreuzberg and Alt-Treptow, well away from his location; but if Humboldthain opened fire ahead of the bomber stream in the hope that they would fly into the barrage; the shrapnel would certainly come down over Lichterfelde.

He barely had time to finish forming this thought, when the great, rolling crashes of the 128mm guns began to echo across the city. The bomber stream appeared totally unaffected by the thick black flak bursts that seemed to engulf them from the constantly thundering guns of all three flak towers, and flew majestically on towards their target.

Jürgen Seifert nervously braced himself and silently began to count; waiting for the patter of the rain of thousands of sharp-edged pieces of flak shrapnel to begin buzzing and whistling down. They made a soft, ominous sound; like hail falling onto a tin roof. Here they come. At first, he could hear them dropping through the big lilac trees out on Finckensteinallee; clinking and thudding onto the cobblestones. Then they began falling onto the parade platz of the Kaserne. Occasionally, there was the wicked swish of a falling shell nose-cap that hadn't disintegrated. These clanged and bounced up into the air as they struck the ground.

As he silently cringed under the approaching steel rain; he glanced out to the north east. A glittering cascade of sticks of incendiaries was falling along with thick black strings of high explosive bombs; and above Berlin, a colossal mushroom cloud of smoke and flames was burgeoning up into the sky as the sun began to disappear behind the thick, reeking veil of smoke gathering over the city.

The first small shards of shrapnel were beginning to clatter off the top of his Stahlhelm. Any minute now, and a big lump was bound to find him. Suddenly, he heard the sharp blast of a whistle from the direction of the Kaserne Headquarters building. He glanced across the parade platz, and saw the duty SS-Oberscharführer; who yelled for him to get under cover. Jürgen Seifert ordered arms and stepped back smartly under the covered rear arcade of the guardhouse. As he did so, he heard a sharp whine; and a lump of shrapnel which must have weighed at least a couple of kilogrammes, struck the concrete plinth where he had been standing only a few seconds previously; chipping a deep gouge, and bouncing several metres out into the parade platz.

Nineteen-year-old Rotkreuzschwester... Red Cross nurse; Luise Gärtner peered nervously through the windscreen of her canvas-hooded Krupp-Protze six-wheel truck towards the sky. She watched the oncoming bomber stream with increasing apprehension. The truck was one of the many civilian vehicles impressed for military use. The driving cab had no doors to protect her from flying shrapnel. On the orders of her Colonel, Oberstarzt Brenner, she had driven from the Feldlazarett... the field hospital in Tempelhof, hoping to pick up medical supplies from the Lichterfelde Kaserne for delivery to the Feldlazarett that had been set up in offices on the far side of the Chancellery building in central Berlin.

The journey had been difficult. The streets in Steglitz were rubble-strewn from the recent bombing, and she had to turn back twice to find a passable route. More frightening was the sound of heavy gunfire no more than sixty kilometres to the south. The Ninth Army was fighting a rearguard action in the heavily-wooded Spreewald region south-east of Berlin, attempting to break out of the pocket westwards through the village of Halbe and the pine forests in the south, to link up with the German Twelfth Army. According to the latest report, they were being cut to pieces; and the Soviet forces were advancing swiftly towards Berlin. She knew what they would do if they caught up with her. Being gang-raped by ten or twelve drunken Russian soldiers was really not something she wanted to experience.

Gritting her teeth, she viciously floored the accelerator pedal and sent the truck careening and bouncing over the rubble-strewn streets towards Lichterfelde.

Fräulein Doktor Karyn Helle von Seringen; the Deputy researcher for the Deutsches Ahnenerbe Institute for Linguistic study sat apprehensively in the front seat of the powerful Mercedes-Benz 540K Limousine, next to the Deputy Kurator of her Institute, as he drove her down through Dahlem to the Lichterfelde Kaserne where he had arranged for her to be taken into central Berlin. Since 1939, the Ahnenerbe had been incorporated into the SS as one of its branches, and its leaders absorbed into Himmler's personal staff. Therefore, his request to have this young Fräulein Doktor driven into Berlin had not been questioned.

She had remained at the old headquarters at Berlin-Dahlem, Pücklerstrasse 16, on the instructions of Himmler, in order to recover several valuable Ahnenerbe artefacts from various locations in the Berlin Government Quarter, which had been borrowed by certain high-ranking Officials to adorn their offices. Most of the Government Quarter which comprised the area of Parisier Platz-Wilhelmstrasse-Friedrichstrasse-Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse; had been virtually flattened by bombing. Karyn von Seringen didn't hold out much hope of recovering anything... except, hopefully, one particular item.

This item was a large, Garnet gemstone that had been discovered inside an ancient artefact that she had recovered from the Tunguska region of Central Siberia during Himmler's futile Vanavara Protokoll initiative of 1937-38. This artefact was said to be the very embodiment of evil... a Destroyer of Worlds; and it had been released into this world in 1939 in an Essen machine shop on the unwitting instructions of Himmler, as the artefact was being sectioned for analysis.

Word had it that this malignant gemstone had been presented to Göring as yet one more trinket for his collection. Allegedly, it was last seen at Die Dienstvilla Goebbels; the private residence at Number 20, Hermann-Göring Strasse; a little to the south of the Brandenburg Gate, and next to the American Embassy; when Göring had occupied the building. Karyn thought that the likelihood of it still being there was at the least... tenuous. Göring had only spent a few weeks there before Goebbels took over the premises. It was more probable that if the gem still existed and was no longer in the possession of the Reichsmarschall; then the place to look would surely be his ostentatious residence on Leipzigerstrasse... if it still stood. The whole area was a prime target for the bombing raids because of its close proximity to the Reichs Chancellery.

The Vanavara Protocol initiative revolved around the discovery of three ancient, vellum-leaved volumes in Central Siberia in 1936. An Evenki reindeer breeder seeking stone to repair the hut, in which he sheltered his stock in winter, came upon the tumbled remains of a building deep in the valley of the Stony Tunguska River. This was the place, where, in 1908, a huge explosion had occurred, flattening thousands of square kilometres of forest… the calamity that has come to be known as The Tunguska Event. Sifting through the tumble of stones, the reindeer breeder had discovered an ancient stone coffer. When he eventually forced the stone lid free, he saw that it contained three great, leather-bound books. Upon opening the first one, he found that they were hand-written upon parchment pages in symbols completely unknown to him. Thinking they might have some value, he carried them off.

The nearest township to his settlement was Vanavara, some seventy kilometres to the southeast. The journey would take him at least a month, but there, he might sell them. At length, he passed them to the proprietor of the settlement trading post in exchange for much-needed supplies. The trading post proprietor passed them on to the local Political Officer, who forwarded them on to Moscow. There, they remained; an enigmatic puzzle.

Word of the existence of the three volumes came to the ears of the German Military Attaché in Moscow, who passed the information to Berlin. The Abwehr intelligence-gathering agency was very interested. The Tunguska Event was well documented. They wanted to know if there could conceivably be some weapon capability that would be of advantage to the Reich, surrounding the explosion of 1908. What better way to find out than to suggest that an archaeological expedition be arranged with the Russians? Consequently, wheels were set in motion. There was already, a tentative Germano-Soviet Accord in place, and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler; obsessed as he was, by occult theories and mysticism; was fascinated by the possibilities.

Fräulein Doktor Karyn von Seringen; an elegant, blonde, twenty-five-year-old archaeologist from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main was chosen for her renowned skill in deciphering ancient languages, and was appointed to the expedition at the highest level in Berlin. She journeyed deep into the Soviet Union; ostensibly, in a mutual research capacity, but with a hidden agenda hatched by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, himself. He chose to code-name this agenda: Das Vanavara Protokoll... The Vanavara Protocol.

This Protocol, agreed at Diplomatic level under the tentative Germano-Soviet accord, prescribed strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence concerning the sharing of such research findings as might be established; between the two Governments. Himmler's hidden agenda was for the young German archaeologist to scrutinise covertly, such findings as might exist, for the slightest intimation … in accordance with the criteria specified by the Abwehr intelligence organization… of any data discovered at the site of the explosion which could possibly have a Military significance; and then, by whatever means necessary, secure such findings for the sole advantage of the Reich. Himmler also saw a propaganda value in this... the classic, young Aryan Mädchen of Das Herrenvolk triumphing over the finest brains of the Soviet Untermenschen.

Unbeknown to Berlin; the young Russian archaeologist... Aleksandr Anatoly Sergeyev had been similarly assigned a near-identical hidden agenda by Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov, The Commissar of the NKVD… The Main Directorate for State Security. Himmler and Yezhov were actually engaged in a sinister game Double-cross. Each archaeologist had been instructed to secure any such discovered information... and then, to liquidate their opposite number.

Sergeyev had been allegedly selected for his in-depth knowledge of Siberian topography. They were to work as a team. As she slowly deciphered the first volume; what she discovered was incredible. The volumes appeared to be the chronicled history of a lost race. It unfolded as the story of a people who dared to raise a defiant fist in the face of a seemingly overwhelming evil that threatened to engulf their Culture; tearing down all that they held as sacred and undeniable truths; an overwhelming evil that was now appeared to be manifesting itself again across the troubled tract of Europe that stretched from the Rhine in the west, to the wastes of Siberia in the east.

At the site; a metal object was discovered... an object referred to in the third of the ancient volumes to be so terrible… so evil, that it could not be permitted to fall into the clutches of any who might meddle with it and release... either inadvertently, or by design, that which it contained. The metal artefact was inscribed with a dire warning in the ancient language that she had already deciphered. The inscription proclaimed that this appallingly evil artefact was A Destroyer of Worlds.

During their investigation of the site; Yezhov's double-cross manifested itself. Sergeyev, who had become Karyn's lover, revealed that he was, in fact, an intrinsic part of the double-cross, with orders to retain the monstrous artefact solely for Yezhov's Machiavellian ambition. Sergeyev was shot and killed by Karyn as he attempted to execute her.

She had returned to Berlin, where she handed the artefact over to Himmler. He too, could not be permitted to realise what it actually was. She had already destroyed the critical segments of her notes, and convinced him that the artefact inscription was indecipherable. Having no reason to doubt her word; Himmler decided that the artefact was no more than an Untermensch curiosity... an interesting conversation piece at any one of his weird, mystical gatherings at the frequent SS Court of Honour Proceedings he held at Wewelsburg Castle. He did, however, decide to have this curious metal analysed.

Because of her involvement in Das Vanavara Protokoll, Karyn von Seringen had been transferred to Das Deutsches Ahnenerbe, where, according to Himmler; her exceptional aptitude for ancient languages would be well-placed for researching the anthropological and cultural history of the Aryan race.

As the Mercedes turned into the main entrance of the Kaserne, the bomber stream was over the centre of Berlin. The hail of flak shrapnel had ceased, as the guns tracked the bombers away to the east over Alexanderplatz. SS-Panzerobergrenadier Jürgen Seifert, now back on his chipped pedestal; smartly presented arms as the Mercedes swept onto the parade ground, where a fatigues party were busily sweeping up the scattering of scrap metal. The car stopped outside the Headquarters building, as Hauptsturmführer Weiser; the Korps Adjutant came to meet the Fräulein Doktor. As he escorted her into the Headquarters building, the Deputy Kurator drove smoothly away through the main gate; turned left onto Finckenstein Allee, and disappeared towards the Allied lines to surrender.

Chapter Two.

Friday, April 20th, 1945 was Adolf Hitler's fifty-sixth birthday. The Russians decided to send him a suitable birthday present. The massed artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front began to shell the central area of Berlin, whilst the U.S. Army Air Force joined in with a massive air raid by over three hundred B-17 Flying Fortress bombers... a birthday bombardment that continued all day, and caused major damage to the centre of the city, cutting gas and water supplies. The cheerless birthday luncheon in the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery was attended by Göring and Himmler, who then fled the city, after offering the Führer their birthday congratulations. Acting in secret, Himmler had begun a vain attempt to broker a peace settlement through the Swedish Red Cross, When Hitler learned of Himmler's treason, one of his last acts before committing suicide was to strip Himmler of all of his party and state offices: Reichsführer-SS, Chief of the German Police, Commissioner of German Nationhood, Reich Minister of the Interior, Supreme Commander of the Volkssturm, and Supreme Commander of the Home Army. Finally, he expelled Himmler from the Nazi Party and ordered his arrest.

Himmler departed the Führerbunker for the last time before the order was issued, reaching his headquarters at Ziethen castle, thirty-eight kilometres northwest of Berlin the next day. He then spent his time fantasising about succeeding Hitler following the collapse of the Third Reich; and whether he should bow, give the Nazi salute or shake hands upon meeting with General Eisenhower to plan a new Germany; whilst Göring travelled to Carinhall to remove his treasures and arrange for the estate to be demolished at the first signs of a Russian advance towards it.

By April 24th, the Soviet army encircling the city had slowly tightened its stranglehold on the remaining Nazi defenders. There were reports that the entire eastern half of the city was on fire. Fighting street-to-street and house-to-house, Soviet troops blasted their way towards the Government Quarter and the Reichs Chancellery in the city centre. They took every opportunity to infiltrate through back yards, cellar passageways, subway tunnels, and sewers. Using these methods, a considerable number of the German defence positions were stormed from behind or below. The infantry cleared the buildings of anti-tank gunners who were concealed in the basements or in the lower floors. After the buildings had been cleared, the tanks would advance.

Fearful of being targeted by German snipers, or machine-gun strong-points... or even the lone, elderly Volkssturm or Hitler Youth armed with a Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon; the advancing Soviet units used armour and artillery firing over open sights to completely demolish any building which could offer the slightest vantage point. The explosives tore out windows and doors which allowed air in to feed the flames, which burnt away the wooden structural elements and usually caused the fire-weakened walls to collapse.

The buildings lay where they had fallen. Heaps of plaster, broken brick and splintered timbers choked the streets. Some rubble piles of the taller buildings rose to almost two storeys in height. The streets had literally disappeared; buried under shattered masonry and twisted steel; and above it all, hung an enormous, sullen pall of smoke.

Here was the devastation of the Capital of Hitler’s ambition on a Wagnerian scale... Berlin's Götterdämmerung with a counterpoint of acrid, choking smoke and brick-dust. Here was the last act of the Tausendjähriges Reich... the Thousand Year Reich as Hitler prowled the dismal underground corridors of the Führerbunker, located eight metres below the Chancellery garden.

GröFaZ.... Grösster Feldherr aller Zeiten - the Greatest War Leader of All Time... the ironical title first attributed to Hitler by his commanding generals in 1943, after Stalingrad; and used by the Berliners' as a nickname for Hitler ever since; was losing touch with reality. Daily briefings were held with his generals amid reports of the unstoppable Soviet advance into Berlin. Frantic orders were made to defend Berlin with armies that were already wiped out or were hastily retreating westward to surrender to the Americans. As early as March; Hitler had ordered the complete destruction of Germany and the German people... his Nerobefehl... Nero Decree. Hitler justified this step as a military necessity, but intended for the destruction of the German people as a punishment for his defeat, He had ranted that the nation had proved itself weak and therefore did not deserve to survive, nor did they deserve him as Leader.

This was "Die Verbrannte Erde"... the scorched earth policy that had been used so effectively during the retreat from the Eastern Front; to ensure that nothing of any value would be left to the armies now gathering for their final thrusts into the Third Reich. Chillingly, he had added,

There is no need to consider the basis of even a most primitive existence any longer.

Hitler's top aide, Bormann had reinforced this spiteful lunacy with a series of dreadful orders. On March 23rd, he decreed that the whole population of Germany... men, women, children, slave labourers and prisoners of war were to be rounded up and force-marched to Berlin. The Russian advance on the Seelow Heights fortunately served to countermand this malicious order which would have resulted in the slaughter of thousands of non-combatants. Speer had been ordered to execute the Decree. Appalled at the lunacy of the order, Speer deliberately failed to carry it out, campaigning clandestinely to prevent its implementation.

In the midst of all this, a handful of Hitler's personal staff remained, including Bormann, the Goebbels family; various SS and military aides, two of Hitler's secretaries, and his naively loyal mistress, Eva Braun.

The remainder of his Goldfasanen... Golden pheasants... the derogatory term used for high-ranking Nazi Party armchair warriors; derived from the brown and red uniforms with golden insignia worn at official functions and rallies; had abandoned Berlin by car, aeroplane, and train to the south and west as the city's fall became imminent. Most Berliners were now openly referring to their devastated city as the "Reichsscheiterhaufen... the Reich's funeral pyre."

Eerily, just a week earlier, on the evening of April 12th; the renowned Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester, now known as the Reichsorchester and functioning under the control of Goebbels as part of his notorious Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda; had given its last concert before Berlin finally succumbed the Russian onslaught. The hall was in darkness and illumination came only from the lights on the music stands. The first piece was appropriately the final scene from Die Götterdämmerung, Wagner’s climactic and tragic music of the Death of the Gods.

As the audience listened to the musical denunciation of the malign transgressions of the Gods; of Siegfried on his funeral pyre; of Brünnhilde riding her horse into the flames to join him; did any of them apprehensively draw parallels with what had been taking place in Germany for the last dozen or so, years?

Then, with the tumult of rolling drums and crashing cymbals as the Reichsorchester thundered to its climactic, majestic finale of the terrible holocaust destroying Valhalla; perhaps they realised that this was indeed, the bitter destiny that was about to descend upon them. This atmosphere was certainly not helped at the end of the performance by uniformed Hitler Youths offering baskets to spectators on the way out. The baskets contained cyanide capsules.

The Sd.Kfz. 250 Schützenpanzerwagen... a light-armoured half-track with SS licence plates and the XI.SS Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland Curved swastika insignia painted on its front armour plate, rumbled and jolted through the cratered, burning, corpse-strewn streets, crushing everything in its path beneath its flailing clattering tracks as it lurched over the Trümmerhaufen... the heaps of rubble, and twisted iron that had once been the sumptuous buildings lining the devastated Belle Alliance Strasse and Belle Alliance Platz.

Five days previously; an armada of American bombers had dropped a torrent of bombs and other incendiary devices onto the city centre, transforming the streets and squares into a massive inferno. Even after its destruction; the battle on this wasteland of rubble had continued, as fanatical members of the Hitler youth constructed barricades at the Belle Alliance Bridge; in a last-ditch attempt to halt the advance of Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army from the direction of Tempelhof.

The Soviet steamroller had swept on through the Berlin Mitte district and was now poised on the edge of the Berlin Defence Zone... the central sector of the city, known as the Zitadelle sector around the Reichstag and the Führerbunker under the Reichs Chancellery.

The six-cylinder Maybach motor howled in low gear as the young SS-Oberschütze driver attempted to negotiate a particularly large mound of splintered granite blocks strewn across the still-hot asphalt. A thick, suffocating blanket of smoke hung over the doomed city... a suffocating blanket smelling of wood; chemicals and the ever-pervading sour stench of charred flesh. Great pieces of soot floated on the air like the tiny parachutes of wind-blown dandelion seeds.

The half-track had an open-top crew compartment with a single access door at the rear. It was fitted with an armoured body made of angled, multi-faceted plates, behind which, its occupants crouched on slatted wooden benches. The vehicle contained six young SS troopers and two young women, who, except for one trooper standing behind the vehicle's single MG42 machine gun; were huddled in their protective armoured womb, trying not to breath in the foul air. The SS troopers were on a particularly dangerous enterprise. They had departed from the LSSAH Kaserne at Berlin-Lichterfelde with orders to extract Field Marschall Keitel from the Führerbunker and transport him south to the headquarters of XX Corps at Weisenburg.

One of the young women was the nurse, Luise Gärtner. The other young woman was Karyn von Seringen. The SS troopers had started their journey from Berlin-Lichterfelde in Luise's commandeered Sanitätskompanie truck, but had discovered that there were so many wrecked vehicles and so much rubble choking the streets that the truck could not proceed along Hauptstrasse much beyond Kaiser Wilhelm Platz in Schöneberg. In the smouldering, skeletal ruins behind the relatively undamaged Rathaus Schöneberg, they had discovered the Sd.Kfz intact, except for a few bullet gouges. It looked as though it was parked up rather than abandoned; its crew might be anywhere... or, they might well all be dead.

SS-Brigadeführer Ziegler's XI.SS Panzergrenadiers Nordland were believed to have made a fighting withdrawal by way of the Schöneberg and Kreuzberg districts in a vicious rearguard action through the rubble-strewn, shattered streets leading towards the Tiergarten.

SS-Panzerobergrenadier Röth jumped up onto the armoured engine cover of the half-track and peered over the front scuttle into the interior of the vehicle. He noted that there was plenty of ammunition for the MG42 machine gun, but no clue as to the whereabouts of its crew.

He snorted.

'She's still got the keys in the ignition. They're either all sitting in Valhalla... or they've decided to pack up their tents and piss off back home to Sweden. Let's see if the old girl will fire up.'

He vaulted over the scuttle into the driving seat; turned the ignition key, and pressed the starter button. The Maybach motor roared into life; its deep bellow echoing through the gaunt ruins as Röth pumped the accelerator pedal. The section leader... SS-Scharführer Erhard Schneider yelled through the driver's observation slit.

'For fuck's sake, knock it off, Willi. You'll have every sodding Ivan between here and the Reichstag down on our necks with that row! This is pretty well a guaranteed Himmelfahrtskommando... a Ride to Heaven command anyway... without you adding your two pfennigs-worth to it!'

Willi Röth laughed.

'No can do, Erhard. They've never made a quiet Maybach motor yet... and why worry about a few bog-dwellers when we are the proud new owners of one of The Number-One Carpet-Chewer's magnificent, go-anywhere sardine cans? Let's go! We're all invited to a ringside seat for the last act of Der Führerdämmerung; and we don't want to be late!

The dreadful confusion of noise from the continuous pounding of the doomed city centre by the Russian heavy guns drifted through the ruins; punctuated by the hideous grinding, wheezing, shrieking noise of the Stalin organs... Katyusha multiple rocket launchers; the most terrifying instruments of all time. The batteries were ranged out in the eastern suburbs. When a salvo struck, it could raze a whole city block instantly... and the Russians had been firing them into the city for days.

Willi Röth laughed again.

'Come on! Listen! It sounds as though they're warming up the orchestra, right now!'

Karyn studied the young troopers' faces. Not one of them was much older than nineteen. Behind the tough bravado she could see the fear in their eyes. They were garrison troops fresh out of SS-Junkerschule; and they had good reason to be fearful. If the Russians caught them, their black uniforms would tar them with the same brush as the Einsatzkommando murderers who had slaughtered their way across Russia in the wake of Operation Barbarossa. All that would await these boys... if they were very, very fortunate; would be an extremely slow and very painful death at the hands of the vengeful Russian soldiers.

Schöneberg and Wilmersdorft, the districts closest to the centre of the city, had been virtually obliterated. As the smoke drifted across the gaunt ruins against a backdrop of twisted girders, the city stood blackened by soot and pockmarked by thousands of bomb craters. Whole blocks of five-storey apartments had simply vanished; entire neighbourhoods were piles of rubble. What had once been wide streets and avenues were now brick-strewn pathways between towering escarpments of rubble. Hectare after Hectare were no more than gutted landscapes of windowless, roofless buildings gaping up at the sullen, smoky sky. The sun was nowhere to be seen. It was darker than the darkest rainy day. A fine rain of soot and ash drifted down, powdering the devastation. In the smoke-choked gloom, nothing moved except the dust... and the rats. Thousands of shards of glass carpeted the wasteland... another gargantuan Kristallnacht; but now, it was the ordinary Berliners, not just the Jews who had endured this.

Hitler had declared Berlin as fortress Festung Berlin in February; but nothing had been put in place to prepare the city. There were almost no regular troops for defence, and no plans were in place for evacuation of women, children or old people. The only defenders were made up of army auxiliaries, SS, Luftwaffe; Volkssturm... very young and very old civilian militia; the civilian police and Hitler Youth. They were very short of weapons, armour, food and fuel, and desperately short of ammunition. The final outcome of the battle was never in doubt. The Soviets had smashed through Schöneberg in spite of the hastily erected barricades of rolls of barbed wire, masses of steel anti-tank obstacles cobbled together from girders dragged off the bomb sites; old vehicles, and wrecked tram cars filled with rubble. These had been used to block main thoroughfares into the city. How well they had performed was ironically summed up by a current Berlin joke:

It will take the Russians at least two and a quarter hours to break through the barricades... Two hours laughing their heads off… and fifteen minutes smashing the barricades.

The half-track grated, lurched and clattered over the debris-strewn Potsdamer Strasse heading for the Landwehrkanal. Above the sound of the bellowing motor and clattering tracks; Erhard Schneider yelled in his driver's ear.

'We're going to have to get a move on, Willi. They're going to blow the rest of the bridges soon.'

Wrestling with the big steering wheel that threatened to leap out of his grasp with every lump of rubble that the front wheels struck; Willi Röth growled at his section leader with bared teeth.

'Belt up and flaming listen! I'm only going to tell you once, so make sure you take it all in. If you think you can pedal this tub any faster then take over. Otherwise, just let me get on with it!'

SS-Rottenführer Erhard Schneider let out a long, despairing sigh and glanced at his charges huddled against the sloping sides of the vehicle.

'He wants a good kick up the arse,'

He declared in loud, exasperated tones.

'What does he think we're doing here? Playing fucking tiddlywinks? This lot reeks of Valhalla and a short life, as it is!'

As the half-track lurched past the first few smouldering remains that marked the intersection with Lützow Strasse; Willi pulled her to a halt with an unpleasant squealing of brakes. He thought that he had seen something move amongst the buildings that might well collapse at any moment. Water gushed from broken mains deep in immense bomb craters; escaping gas flared from fractured mains. The whole place was littered with cordoned off areas sprinkled with ominous signs that said: Achtung! Minen! meaning that somewhere in the masses of rubble were unexploded bombs, artillery shells or aerial mines. He raised a hand and pointed silently towards a great wilderness of rubble dotted with the roofless shells of burnt-out buildings. Schneider swung the MG 42 in the direction Willi had indicated, pulling back the cocking handle, with his finger resting on the trigger, ready to open fire. If it was an ambush that Willi had spotted, the hunter had just become the prey.

Schneider scanned the apparently deserted ruins. The least sign of any suspicious movement in