Fantasy Whatever Gets You through the Night by TMaskedWriter

[Ramesh_Rocky]

Whatever Gets You through the Night Pt. 25


"5th of May, V-Day's just around the corner.

1945, the Fuhrer's reign's at its end.

Jenny at the gates as the SS open fire.

There's no time to waste; the final battle's begun.

After the downfall, a castle besieged.

Facing the Nazis, awaiting relief.

Gangl and Lee and their men set the prisoners free."

-Sabaton, "The Last Battle"

*

Contessa Helena de San Finzione looked at a map of the warehouse that Detective Inspector Luc Allaine brought up on his tablet. He was now learning what his friend, Generalissimo Hernando Ramirez, had warned him about finding himself "overburdened with help."

"There are four entrances." Helen said aloud as the others gathered around it. "The front, garage, and side doors all open onto the main warehouse floor. The back entrance is at the end of the corridor that leads to the office with the cell. The cell door's gone; I had it removed and melted down. Then he's trapped with nowhere to run."

"One man standing where this one is can cover sides one and two of the building." Generalissimo Ramirez observed. "The second, here," He pointed to a spot in the main room. "Can do the same. The third can cover side three because the only access to the warehouse floor from that direction is the corridor. Four is a poured concrete wall with no possible entrances; we'd have to use our own bombs to get in. The skylight hole in the roof seems an obvious gap in the defense, but anyone coming through it will be in the first two guns' crossfire. Dietz will likely position himself here." Ramirez indicated the room with the cell.

"He's not as boxed in there as you'd think." Mander observed. "Nowhere to fall back but the cell, true. But him and the guy watching the hall would have a SWAT team in an L-shaped ambush. Whoever comes down it won't make it to the end. Then it's his one last chance of shooting his way through the perimeter and getting someplace he can grab a hostage and maybe bargaining his way out of the country."

"So, there's no way he hasn't already thought of it and decided to take it." Luc mused. "Even if we knew for certain that he doesn't have any more bombs, we can't risk Dietz taking his cyanide."

"That's my department." Helen answered. She looked in her purse for the cigarette case she'd put away. "Let me worry about that. Mander and I just need a way in."

"Like when Whyte hit the suite." Nigel Mander observed. "Break your way in and the first guys through the breaches are dead. Even if he's bluffing about the bomb, the first ones in will be slaughtered."

"And nobody who isn't a Nazi is getting slaughtered." Helen commented. "I decreed it, remember?" She turned her attention back to the map. "We're still guessing about whether or not he's lying about rigging the place. He's not suicidal but we've definitely pushed him. Especially if he's changed clothes for it. Who wants to put money on whether or not he's just put on a Nazi costume?"

"Dietz had a dozen men to start with." Mander observed. "Now he's down to three. He's been treating them as expendable, now he needs those last three between us and him."

"Three who are probably as scared and jumpy as him." Helen added. "If we could get onto that roof, I might be able to command them from there. If one of them doesn't hear me, though, we'll be exposed. If we could get them to use up their ammo, we could move in while they're changing magazines."

"There are too many variables in that plan." Ramirez insisted. "Assuming all of them expend their magazines at once, you'd have three seconds to act; less if one of them is well-practiced enough. Even then, they might be deafened from the gunfire and not hear you."

"They ain't practiced." Mander interjected. "We learned that back at the caverns. Granted, we had the drop on them, but it was pistols against submachineguns; they still should've gotten at least one of us before we got them. But how many of them could've trained on the MP-40 before now? How many could've even gotten hold of a real one before this? Where would they practice? Anywhere they could've gone in this country, someone would notice a bunch of guys firing automatic weapons."

"Oui," Luc added. "They had to canvass the area around Silverman's apartment with the phony flyers and that ploy had to work the first time. Dietz had too much to lose by risking a second for target shooting. Scott couldn't possibly have stockpiled enough .32 ammunition for that many men to familiarize themselves with the guns and have enough left over for the job AND Dietz's current predicament."

"All right." Helen stated, stepping back from the others to light up. "Hernando, we're going to skip the part where you tell me all about how it's too dangerous and I have responsibilities and children now and can't take these kinds of risks and go straight to my response."