pappabearbooks Chapter 18 Interest and Principal
Chapter 18 Interest and Principal
Jeanne de Valois took a deep breath, the cold air filling her lungs, but it couldn't cool the boiling magma in her blood.
As an intelligence officer, she was professionally trained and knew how to control her emotions, but today, in the face of the burning mill and the dead child, all her professional qualities turned into the most primal urge to kill.
She closed her eyes, and the gray stone walls of Humboldt University of Berlin came to mind, as did the arrogant Prussian Junker officers who had once stood before her, and the deep-seated arrogance towards "inferior races."
If you want to deceive the devil, you must become a Satan who is even more arrogant than the devil.
"Are you ready, Lieutenant?" Arthur crouched down to the side, holding the blood-stained codebook in his hand.
Jeanne opened her eyes, and those once gentle amber eyes now burned with a cold, ashes-like fire. She didn't speak, but nodded forcefully, then pressed the call button on the throat microphone.
The moment the electricity was switched on, she was no longer Jeanne de Valois, no longer the exiled French woman.
She was Schmidt. She was a cog in the Third Reich's war machine, ruthless, efficient, and aloof.
"Vulture Squadron, this is the 2nd Frontline Guidance Group, call sign 'Anvil.' Can you hear me?"
For the first half-second, her voice was still a little dry, but then, the pent-up anger found an outlet, and her Alsatian accent transformed into the purest, most biting Berlin accent:
"Damn it, what are you blind fools doing loitering in the sky? Is the Führer's aviation fuel for you to use for sightseeing over France?!"
The previously noisy background noise on the radio channel instantly fell silent.
This tone was all too familiar, and all too deceptive. In the rigidly hierarchical German Wehrmacht system, those who dare to so brazenly insult pilots on public channels are usually only of two kinds: either madmen or "privileged classes" with extremely high authority and powerful backers.
After a few seconds of deathly silence, the "Vulture" squadron leader's reply came through the earpiece, slightly hesitant but clearly becoming more respectful and even somewhat fearful:
"This is 'Vulture' 1... Received, 'Anvil'! Sorry, the radio interference in this area is too severe. The ground guidance team hasn't responded. We thought... Please designate the target!"
Arthur listened coldly from the side, a mocking smile playing on his lips.
This is the "discipline" that the German army is so proud of—a morbid obedience to authority. As long as your call to arms is correct and your tone is firm enough, even if you tell him to bomb the Reichstag in Berlin, he might pull the trigger before he even thinks about it.
Arthur stretched out his finger and pressed it heavily on the map on the muddy hood.
That's a conductor's baton, and also the Grim Reaper's scythe.
Jeanne looked into Arthur's icy blue eyes, as if drawing boundless strength from that bottomless, frigid pool. She straightened her back, chin held high, and unleashed a series of rapid, stern roars in German into the microphone:
"Immediately change course to heading 135! Repeat, heading 135! We've spotted a large concentration of French armored forces in sector D9! Those are Charles B1 heavy tanks, at least a reinforced company!"
She paused, trying to let that anxious sense of urgency ferment over the radio waves:
"These Frenchmen are using the ruins as cover for emergency refueling, and their guns are already aimed at the road! They're preparing to ambush General Iker's flank! Damn it, if these heavy tanks get onto the road, the entire armored regiment will be cut off! The reference point is a burning mill; I want you to blow up everything around it!"
To enhance realism, Arthur slammed his rifle butt against the truck's metal plate, creating a loud "clang" that simulated the background sound of artillery fire on the battlefield.
There was clear confusion on the other end of the radio. The Stuka pilots were eager for credit, but the accusation of "friendly flank attack" was too serious.
"Coordinates 33-45? Are you sure? That place... that place seems to be very close to your Skeleton Army's main advance route. Your vanguard should be nearby..."
The pilot's voice was filled with hesitation. Sector D-9 was the core route of the Totenkopf Division's advance; what if it hit their own people...?
Arthur had anticipated this.
He quickly pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. On it was written a line of text, the last straw that could break the camel's back—the name of the highest-ranking commander of the unit.
He handed the note to Jeanne.
Jeanne glanced at it, her pupils contracting slightly. It was a name, a name that resounded throughout the SS, a name even carrying a heavy, bloody, and mad dog-like infamy.
The fleeting hesitation in her eyes was instantly replaced by ruthlessness. She gripped the microphone, her voice rising an octave, almost hysterically screaming:
"Enough nonsense! Are you trying to disobey orders? This is a purge order personally issued by General Theodore Ike!!"
Theodore Ekker.
Commander of the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf," the creator of this group of desperados, and former commander of the Dachau concentration camp. Before this madman's name, rules of engagement and identification zones were utterly meaningless. There were even rumors that he would sacrifice even his own men without hesitation for victory.
"General Ike said that even if it means cutting off three feet of land, we must wipe out these French tanks blocking our way, even at the cost of some sacrifice! If your indecisiveness hinders the attack, you can expect to be sent to a penal battalion!"
The infamous name of "Ecke," coupled with the threat of the "punishment battalion," completely shattered the pilots' last line of rational defense. For the Luftwaffe, angering this madman was more terrifying than facing enemy anti-aircraft guns.
"Understood! 'Vulture' Squadron, attack begins! For the Führer!"
Arthur ripped off the cable and quickly turned off the radio.
The response, heightened by fear, pierced my eardrums.
Without a word, Arthur ripped off the cable and quickly shut off the radio's generator. The red indicator light went out, and the world seemed to fall silent again.
"Pack your things and get in the car."
Arthur stood up, dusted off his hands, and acted as if he had just finished a boring afternoon tea rather than plotting a murder.
The show has begun.
……
The convoy didn't rush to escape, but instead retreated five hundred meters deeper into the woods. There, a prominent earthen slope offered a panoramic view, through the sparse birch trunks, of the plain that was about to become a hellish landscape.
This is the VIP seating area.
Sergeant Jack, Sergeant McTavish, Lieutenant Jeanne, and dozens of other Cold Creek Guards soldiers lay prone on the damp, cold slope, binoculars in hand, holding their breath as they gazed at the distant sky shrouded in leaden-gray clouds. No one spoke; even their breathing became cautious, as if a loud gasp would disturb the approaching Grim Reaper.
"Sir, are they really coming?" Corporal Williams asked nervously, clutching half a half-eaten compressed biscuit tightly in his hand, crumbs falling into the mud.
Arthur did not answer.
He leaned quietly against the cold bumper of the Opel truck, took out a captured German Reval cigarette from his silver cigarette case, and lit it with a "click".
Pale blue smoke swirled in the cold wind, blurring his angular face.
He reached out and gently pressed his hand against his chest through his thick military overcoat. There was a hard object there—the rag doll. It was the only soft thing on his body, and the only thing that was burning hot.
His consciousness descended again, switching to the cold, precise, and emotionless RTS system interface.
The God's-eye view is now open.
On that holographic map that only he could see, around the mill ruins, there were more than thirty bright red hostile units scattered around.
Through the system's detailed data, Arthur could clearly see the current state of the executioners.
They were too relaxed.
Because they believed the intelligence might be wrong, they easily tortured and killed a grandfather and grandson, and the SS soldiers completely let their guard down.
The Sd.Kfz. 251 half-tracks and Panzer III tanks, painted with skull and crossbones, were parked in a circle, their hoods open to cool the engine. Several soldiers sat on them, using bayonets to pry open flour sacks they had stolen from the mill, spilling white flour all over the ground, which was then trampled into a filthy mud by their military boots.
Further away, the SS-level assault team captain who had given the order to fire stood before the still-smoking ruins of the mill, unzipped his pants, and urinated on the pile of charred rubble. As he shook himself, he turned to his adjutant beside him, laughing loudly, seemingly boasting about how precise his shot had been.
That was the final desecration of the dead and the greatest provocation to the living.
"Laugh."
Arthur looked at the red dot representing a first-level assault captain and gently exhaled a smoke ring.
"While you can still laugh."
A few seconds later.
A chilling sound began to reverberate through the air. At first, it sounded like the distant buzzing of mosquitoes, but in an instant, it turned into a piercing shriek that tore at the eardrums.
Woo-woo-woo-woo!
That's the "Horn of Jericho".
The wind turbines mounted on the landing gear struts of the Junkers Ju-87 B-2 Stuka bomber produce this signature, terrifying whistling sound, like a banshee's scream, as airflow passes through the blades during a high-speed dive.
For those being bombed, it was a death knell; but for the British soldiers lying prone on the earthen slope, it was the most beautiful symphony in the world.
Through the high-definition view of the Zeiss telescope, Arthur could clearly see that beneath the leaden-gray clouds, six black dots suddenly folded their wings like hunting eagles.
They flipped their fuselages and plunged into the unsuspecting SS assembly area at an almost 90-degree vertical angle.
This was a textbook dive bombing.
The SS troops on the ground finally realized that something was wrong.
On the RTS map, the red dots began to stir violently. The level 1 assault captain, who was urinating, didn't even have time to pull up his pants. He looked up in terror, waving his arms as if trying to shout something.
Maybe he was shouting "We're on the same side," or maybe he was shouting "Stay put."
But amidst the piercing cries of the Jericho horn, the human voice seemed as insignificant as an ant's.
The first Stuka dropped its bomb.
There was no suspense. A 250-kilogram SC250 general-purpose high-explosive bomb detached from the fuselage pylon and, pulled by gravity, traced a deadly parabola as it hurtled down.
Next came four 50-kilogram SC50 fragmentation bombs under the wings, like a deadly bunch of grapes.
boom--!!!
Time seemed to freeze for a millisecond at that moment, and then destruction struck.
The earth trembled violently, as if demons from the depths of the earth were about to burst forth.
A massive, black and red fireball suddenly rose over the plain five kilometers away, instantly engulfing everything around it. The overpressure shockwave from the explosion swept outwards like a transparent, solid wall at thousands of meters per second, snapping trees in its path like matchsticks and turning the water on the ground into a thick fog.
Even from five kilometers away, the windows of the Opel truck were still rattling from the vibrations.
Through the God-like perspective of the RTS system, Arthur saw a scene more cruel, clearer, and more pleasing than the naked eye:
The 250-kilogram aerial bomb landed with a fateful precision less than two meters from an Sd.Kfz. 251 half-track vehicle fully loaded with ammunition and fuel.
This is no longer "damage," it's "erasure."
The secondary explosion occurred instantly.
The massive fireball triggered a chain reaction, detonating hundreds of machine gun bullets and shells inside the half-track and tank simultaneously.
The SS soldier sitting on the hood, along with the multi-ton half-track, was torn into fragments of metal and blood mist in a fraction of a second. The intense heat instantly vaporized the moisture in his body; he vanished on a physical level before he could even feel pain.
As for that first-level assault captain who was urinating?
The shockwave, like an invisible giant hand, hurled him dozens of meters into the air like a rag doll. Before he hit the ground, the flying shrapnel and intense heat had already torn his body to pieces.
Those mouths that were just mocking the old Frenchman are now charred; those feet that were just stomping on the flour are now nowhere to be found.
Then came the second, the third Stuka...
The bombing continues.
With each bomb that falls, a patch of red dots on the RTS map will instantly go out.
This was a one-sided massacre. A perfect "surgical strike" against the German SS, carried out directly by the German Luftwaffe.
Intimidated by both "General Ike" and the "military court," the Stuka pilots displayed extraordinary skill, dropping bombs with terrifying precision. They faithfully carried out "Lieutenant Schmidt's" orders: bomb this place flat, leave no stone unturned.
Some surviving SS soldiers tried to escape, but were overturned by the blast wave before they could take more than a few steps. Some finally reacted in the chaos, grabbing MG34 machine guns and firing wildly at the Stukas in the sky.
But in the eyes of the Stuka pilots, this was irrefutable proof that "French tanks disguised as German troops" were resisting!
Then, more bombs fell, along with machine gun fire, completely ravaging the land.
"This is what's called blitzkrieg."
Arthur looked at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance and coldly commented, "The efficiency is indeed very high. German craftsmanship lives up to its reputation."
At this moment, there was no pity, only a cold sense of satisfaction, like that of verifying a mathematical formula.
Jeanne knelt on the muddy ground, staring intently at the sea of fire.
Her fingernails dug deep into the dirt, blood seeping from the tips, but she was oblivious. Her shoulders trembled violently, and a suppressed, broken sound escaped her throat.
"This is...this is what happens to those beasts."
She murmured to herself, tears welling up again. But this time, it wasn't a helpless cry, but a cathartic release of exhaustion after revenge. She had orchestrated this destruction; she had used her enemy's arrogance to kill him.
This feeling is more effective than any comfort.
Arthur remained in the same position, leaning against the hood of the car, watching as the once densely packed red dots on the RTS map had mostly disappeared—their HP had reached zero. The remaining few scattered wildly in the chaos, like ants that had lost their queen.
This armored company was removed from the Skull Division.
He took one last deep drag of his cigarette, inhaling the pungent smoke into his lungs, and then slowly exhaled.
He reached out and gently patted the somewhat deformed rag doll on his chest through his military overcoat.
"That's just interest, Sophie."
Arthur spoke softly, his voice as cold as ice yet as heavy as a mountain against the backdrop of the booming explosion.
The murderer who killed Sophie is indeed dead, but the main force of the Skeleton Masters is still alive.
"We'll collect the principal in Berlin."
He flicked the cigarette butt away. The red spark traced a graceful parabola in the gray air before landing in the muddy water and extinguishing with a hiss.
This is the law of war: there is no fairness, no chivalry, only life and death.
"Everyone has it."
Arthur's voice echoed through the woods.
The soldiers, recovering from their shock, quickly lined up. Their eyes, looking at Arthur, were filled with awe, worship, and absolute faith.
"Get in the car. The Germans will realize what's happening soon enough. We need to get through this chaotic area before they do."
Arthur opened the car door swiftly.
"Target: Dunkirk."
Boom—Boom—
The engines of the three Opel Lightning trucks roared again, black smoke billowing from their exhaust pipes. Their wheels crunched through the mud, kicking up a trail of dry leaves as they sped off northwest.
Behind them, the two black plumes of smoke—one from the burned-out mill, the other from the bombed-out SS position—intertwined in the gray sky, like a giant, black cross.
It is a tombstone for commemorating the deceased, and also a totem announcing the birth of the avenger.