Chapter 13: Guarding the Emperor
Meanwhile, on the southern side of Wilhelmstrasse, dusk was settling over the city.
Fine droplets gathered in the air, veiling the dim street in a thin gray mist. Because the fighting in the East District had drawn away nearly all available guards, only two thin patrol teams remained on duty here, moving through the empty streets with strained vigilance.
Crouched low in the shadows, Stoff listened to the fading gunfire in the distance.
Then he gave a small nod to the men hidden inside the parked cars.
Bang. Bang.
The first bullets tore through the mist.
Two flowers of blood burst open at once.
"Enemy attack!"
One of the guards, his face splashed with the blood of the man beside him, had barely opened his mouth to shout before another shot punched through his throat.
Bang.
He dropped instantly, warm blood pouring from the wound like a fountain as he collapsed to the pavement, hands clawing helplessly at his neck.
In only a few minutes, a six man patrol had been cut down to two survivors, both of them crouching behind cover and barely clinging to life.
Upstairs, the atmosphere inside the Ministry of Economics changed just as quickly.
Only moments earlier, President Ebert had risen with a glass in hand, preparing to celebrate the successful conclusion of the agreement. But the sudden burst of gunfire made his hand jerk violently, spilling red wine across the floor.
A military officer reacted on instinct, one hand reaching behind him as he rose, trying to draw his sidearm.
Before he could fully stand, an old man with a long walrus mustache tapped his cane lightly against the floor.
That small sound, together with the bright gold on his epaulets, was enough to force discipline back into the room.
Though he no longer served actively in the army, the title of Marshal still weighed on every soldier present like a mountain.
And the name Hindenburg carried the force of an order in itself.
"What happened?" he demanded.
The conference room door was thrown open, and the guards assigned to secure the venue rushed in one after another.
"Sir, an unidentified armed force has launched a heavy assault on the building!"
Those words shattered whatever calm remained.
Several politicians could no longer stay seated. They rushed toward the windows, trying to see outside. In the face of death, composure became a luxury almost no one possessed. Anxious voices spread across the room like a disease.
Nasov, the Soviet Russian ambassador seated near the center, was no exception.
But unlike the others, the trembling in his face did not come from fear.
It came from exhilaration.
"Where are the exterior guards?" Hindenburg asked sharply.
No one answered at first.
That silence became its own answer.
One of the guards finally spoke, his voice strained. "Earlier, a large scale armed workers' uprising broke out in the East District. Most of our personnel were redeployed there. That's why…"
He swallowed hard and added, "But I've already contacted the rapid response unit. At best, they can reach us in ten minutes."
Boom!
The heavy blast of a grenade rolled through the building and into the room, making the windows tremble.
Hindenburg's expression darkened at once.
There was no time left to argue.
It was obvious now that this attack was aimed at them specifically. The enemy wanted to seize the men in this room, hold them hostage, and use them to control Germany itself.
Staying put meant waiting to die.
Breaking out was the only choice left.
They could die.
Germany could not.
Not here. Not like this. Not at the hands of weak leftists who wanted to drag the nation into the mud.
"How many men in this ministry can still hold a gun?" Hindenburg asked.
The guard remained silent.
That silence told him enough.
Hindenburg's gaze swept the room.
"All officers, draw your weapons," he ordered. "You will protect President Ebert at all costs. Give me a gun. I will personally lead the breakout."
[TL: Correction, President Albert is President Ebert]
Downstairs, the gunfight was still raging.
The main entrance had already been torn apart by explosives. Dust and shattered fragments drifted across the floor, laying a pale layer over the wood like frost.
Caught off guard by the sudden assault, more than half the men responsible for the building's defense had already been killed or wounded. Worse, most of them carried only pistols, utterly outmatched by the rebels' machine guns and rifles.
They could do little except huddle behind cover like trapped rats, waiting desperately for a chance to fire back.
Stoff was in no better mood.
The defenders' discipline and training had stalled his advance.
Watching the seconds crawl by on his pocket watch, he finally lost patience and barked out an order.
"Bring up the high explosives! Tell them that if they refuse to surrender, I'll blow the entire Ministry of Economics apart!"
But then, just as he looked up, a burst of chaotic footsteps came thundering from above.
At the same time, the surviving guards launched a fierce counterattack.
Stoff's face changed.
Not good.
They were trying to break out.
What stood in front of him was not merely a cooked duck about to fly away.
It was the political power of an entire nation.
If he captured the men inside, he would not merely hold hostages.
He would hold Germany.
Ambition surged through him so violently that it nearly drowned out reason. But time was slipping through his fingers.
Then Jörg arrived.
The moment his new Mercedes screeched to a halt outside, it was riddled with bullet holes.
But the guards who had come with him were no weaklings either.
During a brief pause in enemy fire, Jörg dropped flat to the ground, skillfully planted the muzzle of a Lewis gun, yanked back the bolt, and opened fire.
Tat-tat-tat-tat!
The weapon screamed like a reaper at harvest.
Several exposed rebels were cut down almost instantly, their bodies dropping one after another beneath the stream of bullets.
Using that suppressive fire as cover, Jörg drove forward with one explosive push, vaulted through the shattered first floor window, and rolled inside.
A pistol filled each of his hands.
Only the sweat beading on his skin betrayed that even he was not nearly as calm as he appeared.
If he had arrived a moment too late, history itself might have shifted here.
And he might have become nothing more than a stepping stone for these leftists.
Stoff saw the situation turning against him and stopped caring about restraint.
A moment earlier, he had still cared whether the officials inside lived or died.
Now he only wanted the battle finished as quickly as possible.
"Team One, Team Two, forward!" he roared.
Several men hiding behind a sofa sprang up at his command, only to be shot in the head almost immediately by guards who had been waiting for exactly that moment.
But the defenders' shots gave away their positions.
Stoff's last four men cut them down in return.
Convinced that the momentum had returned to his side, Stoff lowered his guard slightly and moved toward the staircase.
Behind a curtain, Jörg slowly raised his gun.
He had just lined up the shot, ready to catch Stoff off guard, when someone descended the stairs ahead of him.
An old man.
A very familiar old man.
There was no time to identify him properly.
The instant Stoff saw the weapon in the old man's hand, his own left hand snapped up with the gun already inside it.
Damn it.
In that split second, Jörg understood one thing with perfect clarity.
Hindenburg could not die here.
If Hindenburg died here, everything would collapse.
So Jörg moved.
He lunged forward without hesitation, throwing himself directly in front of the old marshal and shielding him with his own body.
Because of the difference in height, the bullet that had been meant for Hindenburg's head instead slammed into Jörg's upper side and back.
For power, he had gambled with his life this time.
The pain came at once, hot and savage.
It tore a sharp gasp out of him, and as blood poured from the wound, strength began to drain rapidly from his body.
Hindenburg, still stunned, had only just realized what had happened when the officers behind him came surging down the stairs and gunned down Stoff's final four men.
At nearly the same moment, the guards who had cleared the rebels outside rushed into the building as well. The clatter of armored vehicles and the shouted orders of arriving soldiers filled the air, and all at once the men inside felt their hearts settle back into their chests.
Quietly, instinctively, many of them thanked God.
After an incident like this, even a fool could understand the connection between Stoff and Nasov.
Nasov realized it too.
Thinking of that, he immediately tried to slip away amid the confusion.
A single command froze him where he stood.
Hindenburg looked down at the warm blood staining his own hands.
The realization that this young man had saved his life brought more than gratitude.
It brought the cold relief of a man who had narrowly escaped death.
His face hardened.
"No one leaves this room," he said coldly.
Then his voice rose into a roar.
"And call an ambulance. Quickly! Quickly!"