Black Order (Sigma Force 3)

The rest of his unit followed.

Jakob shone his hand-torch down the cement drain. Did the air smell a touch fresher? He followed the beam with renewed vigor. With escape so near, the mission was almost over. His unit would be halfway across Silesia before the Russians ever reached the subterranean warren of rat runs that constituted Wenceslas Mine. As a warm welcome, Jakob had planted booby traps throughout the laboratory passages. The Russians and their allies would find nothing but death among the highlands.

With this satisfying thought, Jakob fled toward the promise of fresh air. The cement tunnel descended in a gradual slope. The team's pace increased, hastened by the sudden silence between artillery bursts. The Russians were coming in full force.

It would be close. The river would only remain open for so long.As if sensing the urgency, the infant began a soft cry, a thready whine as the sedative wore off. Jakob had warned the team's medic to keep the drugs light. They dared not risk the child's life. Perhaps that had been a mistake…

The timbre of the cries grew more strident.

A single mortar shell blasted somewhere to the north.

Cries became wails. The noise echoed down the tunnel's stone throat.

"Quiet the child!" he ordered the soldier who bore the baby.

The man, reed thin and ashen, bobbled the pack from his shoulder, losing his black cap in the process. He struggled to free the boy but only earned more distressed screeches.

"L-let me," Tola pleaded. She fought the man holding her elbow. "He needs me."

The child bearer glanced to Jakob. Silence had fallen over the world above. The screaming continued below. Grimacing, Jakob nodded his head.

Tola's bonds were cut from her wrists. Rubbing circulation into her fingers, she reached for the child. The soldier gladly relinquished his burden. She cradled the baby in the crook of her arm, supporting his head and rocking him gently. She leaned over him, drawing him close. Soothing sounds, wordless and full of comfort, whispered through his wails. Her whole being melted around the child.

Slowly the screeching ebbed to quieter cries.

Satisfied, Jakob nodded to her guard. The man raised his Luger and kept it pressed to Tola's back. In silence now, they continued their trek through the subterranean warren beneath Breslau.

In short order, the smell of smoke overtook the reek of the sewers. His hand-torch illuminated a smoky pall that marked the exit of the storm drain. The artillery guns remained quiet, but an almost continuous pop and rattle of gunfire continued—mostly to the east. Closer at hand, the distinct lap of water could be heard.Jakob gestured to his men to hold their position back in the tunnel and waved his radioman to the exit. "Signal the boats."

The soldier nodded crisply and hurried forward, disappearing into the smoky gloom. In moments, a few flashes of light passed a coded message to the neighboring island. It would only take a minute for the boats to cross the channel to their location.

Jakob turned to Tola. She still carried the child. The boy had quieted again, his eyes closed.

Tola met Jakob's gaze, unflinching. "You know my father was right," she said with quiet certainty. Her gaze flicked to the sealed crates, then back to him. "I can see it in your face. What we did…we went too far."

"Such decisions are not for either of us to decide," Jakob answered.

"Then who?"

Jakob shook his head and began to turn away. Heinrich Himmler had personally given him his orders. It was not his place to question. Still, he felt the woman's attention on him.

"It defies God and nature," she whispered.

A call saved him from responding. "The boats come," the radioman announced, returning from the mouth of the storm drain.

Jakob barked final orders and got his men into position. He led them to the end of the tunnel, which opened onto the steep bank of the River Oder. They were losing the cover of darkness. Sunrise glowed to the east, but here a continuous cloud of black smoke hung low over the water, drawn thick by the river draft. The pall would help shelter them.

But for how long?

Gunfire continued its oddly merry chatter, firecrackers to celebrate the destruction of Breslau.

Free of the sewer's stink, Jakob pulled away his wet mask and took a deep clean breath. He searched the lead gray waters. A pair of twenty-foot low boats knifed across the river, engines burbling a steady drone. At each bow,barely concealed under green tarps, a pair of MG-42 machine guns had been mounted.

Beyond the boats, a dark mass of island was just visible. Cathedral Island was not truly an island, as it had accumulated enough silt back in the nineteenth century to fuse to the far bank. A cast-iron emerald green bridge dating back to the same century crossed to this side. Beneath the bridge, the two gunboats skirted its stone piers and approached.

Jakob's eyes were drawn upward as a piercing ray of sunlight struck the tips of the two towering spires of the cathedral that gave the former island its name. It was one of a half-dozen churches crowded on the island.

Jakob's ears still rang with Tola Hirszfeld's words.

It defies God and nature.

The morning chill penetrated his sodden clothes, leaving his skin prickling and cold. He would be glad when he was well away from here, able to shut out all memory of these past days.

The first of the boats reached the shoreline. Glad for the distraction, even happier to be moving, he hurried his men to load the two boats.

Tola stood off to the side, babe in her arms, flanked by the one guard. Her eyes had also discovered the glowing spires in the smoky skies. Gunfire continued, moving closer now. Tanks could be heard grinding in low gears. Cries and screams punctuated it all.

Where was this God she feared defying?

Certainly not here.

With the boats loaded, Jakob moved to Tola's side. "Get on the boat." He had meant to be stern, but something in her face softened his words.

She obeyed, her attention still on the cathedral, her thoughts even further skyward.

In that moment, Jakob saw the beauty she could be…even though she was a Mischlinge. But then the toe of her boot stubbed, she stumbled and caught herself, careful of the babe. Her eyes returned to the gray waters and smokypall. Her face hardened again, gone stony. Even her eyes turned flinty as she cast about for a seat for her and the baby.

She settled on a starboard bench, her guard moving in step with her.

Jakob sat across from them and waved to the boat's pilot to set out. "We must not be late." He searched down the river. They were headed west, away from the eastern front, away from the rising sun.

He checked his watch. By now, a German Junker Ju 52 transport plane should be waiting for them in an abandoned airfield ten kilometers away. It had been painted with a German Red Cross, camouflaging it as a medical transport, an added bit of insurance against assault.