With Hans on the team, things shifted up a gear. For 6 months we terrorized the Nazis. We blew up cars, trains, planes and anything else that had a swastika on it.
Of course, our army tried to reason with us, they were willing to forget everything as long as we came back and followed their orders. We ignored them, this was our war, our rules.
Hitler even mentioned us in one of his speeches. He called us the keystone cops of the allied forces. We all had a damn good laugh over that.
Then through the French resistance network we got a whisper of something over the border in Germany. There was news of a lot of mysterious medical hardware heading to a place just south of Duren called Teufelshaus.
We all decided to find out what it was and to blow it to kingdom come.
Jimmy scanned the base when we got there. "Whatever's in there it's important, never seen so many ambulances in all my life. I count at least two hundred men guarding it all. Maybe more." He then said glumly. "It's too big for us, we can't do it."
Hans raised his fist into the air. "It's Brood's secret weapon I can feel it."
We all looked at each other, then Leon asked. "Who's Brood?"
He called us all closer as if someone might hear. "When I was in Berlin before the war, I was a doctor at the Fischer Hospital. There was a surgeon there called Max Van Brood who was sent to jail for experiments on prisoners.
"He was trying to raise the dead.
"When the Nazis fools got into power, he was released from jail. I heard whispers through the healthcare community that he was back to raising the dead again."
Hans pointed to the base. "That has to be him in there. Look." We watched as yet another ambulance arrived at the base. "They're shipping in dead bodies, I know it."
Raff was the first to speak. "I hear what you're saying Jimmy old pal, and I agree there's a lot guarding the place. But what the hell else we goner do. I say we go in and paint Nazi blood on all the walls."
Leon spoke next. "I'm here to kill so let's kill."
Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. "If you want to go in then I guess I got all your backs."
Hans looked at me, I gave a smirk and said. "If you're wrong and it's just some kind of ambulance repair place, whiskeys on you for a month."
We fought hard and I'm pretty certain we painted a lot of Nazis blood on those walls. But Jimmy was right it was too much for us. Leon was the first to go. He caught a double tap to the head as we went deeper into the base.
"What the hell is this Hans?" Jimmy screamed. All around us we saw hundreds of chemical bottles all hooked up to pipe work.
"At a guess Brood has found the elixir of life."
We burst through a heavily guarded set of iron doors. What I saw, I will take to my grave.
There as far as the eye could see, we saw dead bodies racked on shelving like meat in a butcher's shop.
Behind me, I heard a scream. Jimmy had been shot through the chest. Me, Raff and Hans ran for our lives. From all corners, soldiers sprang out. In a hail of bullets Hans was cut down too. His dying words was death to the Reich. He was the only damn kraut I liked.
It was just me and my old pal Raff. We glanced at each other as we raced through a corridor. I felt a bullet strike me in the chest. Raff held me and we moved as one.
"You're going to be ok pal." He reassured. I was bleeding like a pig, I knew I was finished.
We burst into an operating room and saw for the first time Max Van Brood. He was a small timid looking man. He was about to put a needle into a corpse's arm.
"What are you doing here?" He screeched.
Raff bolted the doors then punched him in the face. "What is that?" and pointed to the needle in his hand. "I wanna know before we all die, what it is."
Brood backed into a corner. "Fool, it is a life's work to bring back the dead."
I gave a groan and collapsed. Raff in a flash took the needle and put it in my arm.
Brood screamed. "You damn fool, you can't give it to the living!"
I felt the liquid go into my vein. The last thing I saw was Raff's face. "Hope it works old pal either way see you on the other side hey." The rest was blackness, I had died.