Winter's Bullet by William Osborne Page A

bullet on you, either. Come with me, both of you.’
    There was no choice. No time to wonder what was happening. Numbly, Tygo and Willa followed the man out of the room and along the metal walkway to the office at the end. This one was marked ‘Sales’. The man stopped outside the door.
    â€˜But first,’ he said, ‘there’s someone who wants to see you, someone who made the right choice, Tygo.’
    Tygo tried to imagine who on earth that might be. The man pushed open the door and shoved Tygo into the room.
    Sitting behind a desk was a young woman. Her hair was cut very short like a boy’s, and there was a livid red scar on one side of her face. But there was no doubting who it was.
    It was Alisa, Tygo’s sister.

CHAPTER 15
    T he small electric train rattled along its narrow-gauge lines, taking its precious cargo from deep beneath the Austrian town of Sankt Georgen back up to the surface.
    General Müller was sitting in the first open-topped wagon, his face pouring with sweat. The heat deep in these caverns was terrific, but he had insisted on seeing the incredible workshops and laboratories that slave labour from the nearby Mauthausen concentration camps had built deep underground.
    Entire factories were operating here; the new jet planes were built in special galleries. But most vital was the small, top-secret facility that had created the bomb nowstrapped to one of the wagons behind Müller. This bomb was just the first wonder weapon, the head scientist had assured him. They would produce many more. It seemed fitting to Müller that such a hellish thing had been made deep underground.
    Ahead the tunnel was widening out into a large gallery, which linked up to other tunnels all with their own narrow-gauge railways. Thousands of prisoners were being marched in and out through the entrance, their shifts beginning or ending. They were dressed in ragged striped pyjamas and their faces were skull-like, nothing more than skin and bone. The facilities operated twenty-four hours a day.
    So this was the policy of ‘ Vernichtung durch Arbeit’ in action.
    Müller caught the acrid smell of the men as the train went past them and for a moment a wave of nausea seized him. He fought it back and only allowed himself to breathe freely once they were outside.
    An army lorry was waiting with escort jeeps and Müller watched as the wooden crate containing the bomb was carefully loaded on to the back of it. There was the usual paperwork to be signed in triplicate and then Müller saluted the head scientist and climbed aboard the lorry.
    It was a short trip from the underground laboratory to the nearby airfield at Linz and thankfully no daylight air raids to worry about. He had left Eva Braun and her sister Gretl there to have lunch. Gretl’s husband, Hermann Fegelein, was the liaison officer between Hitler and Himmler.
    The small convoy was waved through the police checkpoint at the airfield, and drove directly into a hangar where a bomber was waiting. Once again, Müller supervised the loading of the wonder weapon into the plane. It would take off later that day and fly to Peenemunde where it would pick up the rocket that would carry this precious payload. From there both bomb and rocket would be taken to the secret airfield outside Amsterdam, and then, finally, everything would be in place.
    Müller checked his watch. There was just time for him to join the ladies for some strudel perhaps, and then they too must be on the road. He marched briskly across the snow-covered tarmac to the small canteen, smoke billowing from its cowled steel chimney.
    The two women sat at a corner table, their lunch finished. A cosy fire blazed in the stove and pleasant folk music was playing on the radio.
    Müller took off his hat. ‘Perhaps I might join you for a coffee?’
    â€˜That would be delightful,’ said Eva. ‘Did you conclude your business, Herr General?’ Her eyes were