Wüstenrose

Thea had never been forced into using her state-issues gun in her entire length of service with the Nazi party.

The pistol itself was a standard Nazi officer grade; a Walther PPK with the insignia of the SS-Totenkopfverbände — a small totenkopf — carved into either side of the handgrip. Her father had known the gentleman who issued the weapons and as such, they had allowed Thea to modify the gun to suit her own needs. The handgrip was slimmer, and they had fitted it with an elongated barrel to allow for more accuracy in placing shots. It wasn’t entirely needed – the gun was almost always strapped to her belt and very rarely saw action – and due to her lack of practice, her first three shots missed their target entirely.

She had let off a barrage of bullets almost instantly after hearing the enemy fire whizz by her head, but that was about as far as she had managed to get before a bullish-looking young man dressed in Waffen-SS uniform pushed her into the nearest alleyway. She knew he was required to protect her – they had been the team assigned to escort she and the plans from Frankfurt to Berlin after her conversation with Obergruppenführer Bretz – but she still hissed a few choice swear words at him as he glanced backward at the two bodies occupying the alleyway.

Dreher had, naturally, been accompanying her as well, and the first bullet to find its mark had been one that buried itself deep into his shoulder, sending a waterfall of sticky, viscous blood cascading down the front of his uniform. His bag was missing – doubtlessly smuggled back into the main building to keep whatever secrets were held within them safe from the meddling hands of the Semites. Secrecy before medical attention – clearly the higher-ups cared more about their secrets than they did their men.

“What the fuck is happening?” Thea asked loudly over the calls for backup and cries of pain. The pistol felt eerily cold in her hand, foreign. From the second she had stepped foot into the ranks of the SS, she had been consigned to a desk job safely out of the way – any firearms training that she had learned with her father had been pushed to the back of her mind, rusty and covered with cobwebs from lack of use.

The question fell on deaf ears. The man standing guard either hadn’t heard her, or was simply choosing to take the opportunity to ignore a senior officer. Cursing aloud again, she took a step forward and attempted to push herself in front of his bulky frame to see what was happening. As she tried to side-step him, he turned and pushed her further back into the alleyway, causing her to stumble over her own feet. He glowered at her, pointing towards Dreher with his spare hand.

“Gruppenführer Sommer.” He had to shout over the noise of the gunfight that was rapidly materialising behind him. “Tend to your subordinate. We need to keep you out of harm’s way until the threat is neutralised.”

Thea snorted. “And what exactly is the threat, Kriminalsekretär?” As Thea’s words spat from her lips, she took a quick opportunity to sneak a glance behind his arm at the chaos beyond. The streets were a bloodbath of civilian casualties and SS bodies. There were nearly two dozen shabbily-dressed people firing on the Siegstraße, just in front of the Nazi party buildings, and her men were dropping like flies. Thea had seen the rebels attack before, but they normally materialised in smaller numbers, and with little firepower. Insurgents weren’t organised, not like this.

“That’s classified information, Gruppenführer. Please, get back.”

Thea had to bite back a laugh in spite of the situation. Here he was, withholding information from her despite the fact that she held at least nine ranks above him. She tried to push forward again, but he blocked her path effortlessly, gesturing once again to the alleyway. Had she been more equipped, she might have rushed the man to join in on the fight, but instead she chose to heed his orders, turning her back to the fighting and focusing her attention toward Dreher in defeat.

Against the stark darkness of his uniform, Dreher’s skin looked translucent. His neck was like some kind of warped watercolour, all crimson and shining against the midday sun. Dropping to her knees beside him, Thea began to feel unrulable panic swell up into her throat, constricting her breathing. For all of her skills, first aid was not something she knew anything about, save the necessary stuff from high-school biology classes. The dark bullet hole was barely visible against his uniform, but Thea could see where the bullet had lodged in his upper arm, just below the armpit.

“Okay Dreher. It hit an artery. Uh, the bronchial artery?” Thea muttered under her breath, trying desperately to recall the few things she had learned in school. “Brachius artery? Brachial artery! It’s severed the brachial artery. Oh, shit.”

Dreher murmured something under his breath, but it was entirely intelligible. His eyes were fluttering constantly, almost as if he were falling into REM sleep – another useless phrase Thea’s mind had conjured up from class. She tried to pull of his jacket, fingers scrabbling at the belt buckle but it was futile – the blood made the metal too slippery to grip. Cursing again, she resorted to pulling his shoulder out of the thick woolen material as best she could.

“Dreher, look at me,” she hissed, slapping the young man’s face. He barely moved. “Goddammit Dreher, look at me, that’s an order.”

He let out another sound, although whether it was a laugh or a cry of pain, Thea couldn’t tell; it was a thin, wheezing sound that barely even passed his lips. She had already taken off her own jacket and was now pressing it deep into the wound in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. She knew it was futile – he had already lost far too much blood and it continued to flow, pooling around her hands.

“Dreher, come on.”

His eyes were closed now and, were it not for the faint puffs of air pushing their way past his chapped lips, Thea would have given up hope there and then. The sickeningly-sweet stench of blood mixed with the gunpowder in the air, providing a scent that Thea doubted she would ever forget. The thick crunch noises around her muffled her hearing and reverberated a round the square. Thea searched her memory for a name to put to the sound, thinking desperately before coming up with it – hand grenades. She had not heard them since she was a small child and the war was coming to an end, when the British and the Americans had given up hope and stormed the streets as shells fell left, right and centre. Back then, her father had ushered her into the nearest shelter and kept her safe. Back then, she had very few fears and even less care for those around her. Back then, she didn’t have her hands pressed against a corpse.

After a few seconds, the gunfire stopped.

A few seconds more, and Dreher wasn’t breathing anymore.



“What the fuck was that about?”

Thea hadn’t waited for the go-ahead to enter Obergruppenführer Heppenheimer’s office. In fact, she hadn’t even waited for his secretary to acknowledge her presence before she had pushed her bloodstained hands against the thick oak doors of his office, throwing them open with as much strength as she could muster.

“Gruppenführer Sommer. You’re bleeding.” Heppenheimer barely looked up from his desk as she entered, focusing his attention on the document on his desk as if he had no idea of the carnage that had taken place just outside his office window. Thea took a few sharp strides forward until she reached the desk, slamming her hands off of the edge. Heppenheimer jumped; an unusual action from the highest-ranking officer in the building.

“It’s not my blood, sir,” Thea started, her words spitting from her mouth like bullets, “it’s Dreher’s. He’s dead, in case you wanted to know. I want to know what he died for. Start talking.”

Heppenheimer stood, brushing off the front of his coat. His usually intimidating six-foot-three-inches was enough to cause any feuding officer to leave with their tail between their legs, but Thea continued to stare at him, eyes flashing dangerously. She wanted him to pull rank, wanted him to challenge her. Instead, he sighed, gesturing to the nearest seat.

“Sommer, sit down. You’re in shock. I’ll fix you something and then we’ll talk.”

“I’ll stand, thanks.”

Heppenheimer rolled his eyes at Thea’s disobedience, waving away the two officers who had followed Thea through the doors. They obliged obediently, leaving the room and pulling the doors closed behind them. Once they had left, Heppenheimer turned to a glass cabinet behind his desk, picking two glasses carefully from the shelf before sitting them both down carefully and pouring a minuscule amount of thick, honey-like liquor into each.

“Scotch whisky, imported. The finest money can buy.” Heppenheimer offered Thea one of the crystal glasses. She shook her head vehemently.

“I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself.”

Heppenheimer poured the contents of the second glass into his own and took a large gulp. As he returned to his seat, he smacked his lips together in appreciation. Thea remained standing, hands resting firmly on her hips. In any other circumstance, she would have been embarrassed to stand in front of any superior with her uniform in such a mess, but at that precise point in time, her appearance was the last thing on her mind. Heppenheimer sat in silence for a few seconds, before pulling himself forward and resting his elbows on his desk.

“You have an understanding of the chain of command, Sommer?” he asked, gesturing to the seat in front of his desk once again. “I asked you to sit down. You’d do well to heed that order.”

Reluctantly, Thea sank into the seat. Heppenheimer smiled at her, not unlike the way in which a snake would smile at its prey before killing it. Thea shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. The adrenaline that she had felt in her march to Heppenheimer’s office was wearing off, and she could feel fatigue setting in under her skin.

“I assume you have been briefed on the uprisings in Gelsenkirchen?”

Thea nodded, “Yes, partially.”

“Good.” Heppenheimer took another gulp, sounding his appreciation. “You’re sure you don’t want anything?”

“Nein, danke. I don’t drink when I’m on duty.”

Heppenheimer ignored the thinly-veiled dig. “We discovered a series of resistance cells; here in Frankfurt, some in Berlin and others in München. All, we believe, are being controlled from Gelsenkirchen. We assume they kept their base to the west and in a small town to avoid detection. Why do you think they are hiding, Sommer?”

“Because they’re weak.”

“They are not weak, my dear.” Heppenheimer laughed, a short, accented bark. “They have shown that today.”

“They attacked when our defenses were down. That’s weakness.”

Heppenheimer sighed audibly, the noise echoing throughout the room. “There’s no such thing as a weak being, Sommer. There are simply those who flourish, and those who we must eradicate.”

Thea knew exactly who Heppenheimer was alluding to. “The Semites, sir.”

“Yes, Sommer. The Semites.”

Heppenheimer lit a cigarette before offering the pack to Thea. Reluctantly, she took one and placed it between her teeth. She refused the offer of a light, instead fishing her own lighter from the pocket of her skirt.

“The reason you are being sent to Berlin to liaise with Obergruppenführer Bretz, Sommer, was because you’ve been picked to head up an Einsatzgruppe.” Heppenheimer was barely visible between the wall of smoke that he had created. Thea furrowed her eyebrows as she took a drag, allowing the nicotine to wash over her system and calm her a little. An elite task force — there was no doubt of the nature of the group she would be leading, nor of the tasks they would be carrying out. Thea had heard of the Einsatzgruppe that were created during the war in her history books. The sinking feeling that she had experienced earlier that morning returned, and she had to stop herself from ejecting the bile that was rising up from her stomach.

“Einsatzgruppe, sir?”

“Yes, Sommer. You’re going to kill the insurgents and restore calm to our empire.”