Chapter 47 - The Butcher of Bavaria
The subterranean corridors of Kastell-9 were lined with damp concrete that had turned green with moss. The lighting was minimal—flickering fluorescent tubes shielded by steel cages, humming with an irritating sixty-hertz drone that dug into the skull.
We descended three levels down into the earth via a spiral steel staircase.
There were no beds here. No offices. This was not a command bunker. It was a torture facility, designed specifically to strip a human being of sanity and identity without leaving a trace on the surface of the earth.
On the fourth subterranean level, the air grew freezing. The walls were covered in acoustic padding that had rotted and split, revealing the bare, weeping bedrock beneath.
"Clear," Reyes whispered, her rifle sweeping a long corridor lined with heavy steel cell doors, each with a reinforced observation slot.
I walked down the corridor. My tactical boots made no sound on the wet floor, but the heavy pounding of my heart felt loud enough to shake the walls.
At the very end of the hall, cell number 09 stood open.
A bright surgical light shone down upon an empty steel chair bolted to the floor. Restraints—leather cuffs reinforced with steel cable—hung limp from the armrests. On the floor beneath the chair lay a dark, dried pool of blood that had soaked into the porous concrete.
Beside the chair sat a medical tray containing empty ampoules of chemical truth serums, electrodes, and a pair of broken naval dog tags.
Miller looked down at the blood, his face pale beneath his camouflage paint. "He died right here, sir. Four hours before we hit Istanbul."
Before I could answer, a loud, metallic clatter echoed from the shadows behind the observation room.
"Move!" I barked.
We surged through the doorway, weapons raised.
Cowering behind a shattered server console was a man in his late fifties, wearing a blood-stained doctor’s coat over civilian tactical pants. His left arm was wrapped in a crude bandage, and he was desperately trying to feed documents into an industrial shredder.
Hayes slammed the man against the concrete wall, wrenching his arms behind his back and forcing his face onto the steel table with enough force to crack his nose.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" the man shrieked in German-accented English. "I am non-combatant! I am Dr. Klaus Richter! I am civilian contractor!"
I stepped forward slowly, lowering my rifle, my eyes boring into his soul.
"You're not a civilian, Richter," I said, my voice dangerously low. "You were the chief medical officer for the Stasi black-interrogation unit before 1989. Sterling recruited you to keep Arthur Vance alive."
Richter looked at my face, and his eyes widened in sheer, paralyzing terror. He recognized the bone structure. He recognized the eyes.
"You..." Richter stammered, his body beginning to shake violently. "You are Arthur's boy. The Admiral."
"Where is his body?" I asked. The question was quiet, but it carried the weight of an executioner's axe.
"They... they took him," Richter wept, saliva dripping from his chin. "Two hours ago. Colonel Weiss arrived with a private transport team. They loaded the Commander into a refrigerated container. They flew him to Norfolk."
Miller stepped forward, his fists clenched. "Norfolk? Why the hell would they take him to the largest naval base in the world?"
"The trap..." Richter gasped, struggling to breathe as Hayes tightened the grip on his neck. "Sterling isn't running away! The Dead Hand protocol wasn't just to frame Ethan! It was an activation code! Sterling is moving the *USS Leviathan*—the automated ghost submarine—out of Norfolk's dry dock! He's going to detonate the experimental warhead off the Virginia coast and blame Ethan's shadow network for an attack on the homeland!"
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
"And Arthur?" I asked, my voice trembling with a rage that threatened to consume my reason. "Why take his body?"
"To display him!" Richter sobbed. "They're going to put Arthur's corpse in the command chair of the drone submarine! To prove he was the commanding officer of the rogue faction! To destroy his name forever!"
I looked at the shredder. Half of a flight manifest was still sticking out of the feed rollers.
I pulled it free.
The manifest showed the registration number of a Gulfstream jet that had departed Baden-Baden two hours earlier, filed under diplomatic clearance direct to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.
Sterling wasn't hiding in the shadows of Europe anymore. He was heading straight for my home. He was heading for the fleet.
"Kill him?" Hayes asked, his thumb hovering over the safety of his sidearm.
I looked at Richter—a miserable, pathetic monster who had tortured my father for decades for a paycheck from men in suits.
"No," I said coldly. "Zip-tie him to Arthur’s chair. Hook up the camera on his desk. Broadcast his confession live to every military frequency in Europe. Then we take our transport and we fly home."
"Admiral," Miller said, his eyes burning with lethal intent. "We're going to Virginia without clearance. The entire Atlantic fleet has orders to shoot us out of the sky."
May you like
"Let them try," I said, turning my back on the dungeon. "Tell the four hundred veterans in Virginia to put on their uniforms. The Admiral is coming to take his ship."
***
