Chapter 315: Thrilling

In the dim basement, the Junker officer in charge of the Führer’s Residence’s soldiers’ garage was pacing back and forth with extreme impatience. With his hands behind his back, he looked at the silent Ghost and the others and demanded angrily, “When are you going to make your move? The Gestapo and the SS must have discovered something for this situation to have occurred…”

“Calm down! If our cooperation were to be detected, even a little bit, they would have transferred you out of here,” Ghost said with a chuckle, waving his hand. “They are only targeting a portion of the Junker aristocrats. Because there are too many Junker aristocrats in Germany, and almost all officers have some sort of intricate connection with them, that Führer of yours hasn’t just gone ahead and wiped out officers like you.”

“Then why haven’t you made your move yet? If we keep waiting like this, our entire system will be destroyed. Then what’s the difference between making a move and not?” the Junker officer said impatiently.

“You should know! This is an operation that must succeed and cannot fail!” Ghost said, frowning back at him. “Our country, and your group, are all waiting for the success of this operation to assassinate Akado. This can save the lives of thousands upon thousands of people! We are also very anxious, understand? So we must ensure success!”

He glanced at the Six of Hearts, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Ghost gritted his teeth and, ignoring him, continued, “And it won’t be long now. Since you said he is leaving at 10 o’clock sharp tomorrow to go to the Naval General Staff to stabilize morale, then we will make our move tomorrow!”

“Good! I’ll arrange it at once!” The lieutenant colonel Junker’s eyes lit up. He nodded and then immediately said, “I’ll go and take care of this matter. We’ll act tomorrow morning!”

As soon as the officer had left, the Six of Hearts spoke anxiously. “You know very well that we are not ready. At the very least, we only know the times of three of Akado’s outings, but we simply cannot calculate how long Akado will be in the car.”

“Although our plan is not seamless, we still have a very high chance of success,” Ghost said with a chuckle. “And this time is a godsent opportunity. Even if we fail, we can still gain a lot!”

“What can we gain from failure?” Paul, being a thief, although he had been trained for a long time in Britain, was still not very bright. He was taken aback after hearing this and immediately asked.

“If Akado survives, what will he think? He has just carried out a bloody purge of many Junker aristocrats, and then he is hit by this attack. If it were you, what would you think?” Ghost said with a proud smile. “We have planted a seed of distrust between Akado and the Junker aristocrats. Sooner or later, it will take root and sprout.”

“In that case, let’s move!” the Six of Hearts said with a nod.

Although it was already mid-January, and the war had already been going on for eleven days, the temperature in Berlin was still as cold as ever, forcing people to wrap themselves up tightly before going out.

“Heil Führer! Good morning, Lieutenant Colonel,” the guard on duty at the gate said, saluting as he saw his superior get out of the car.

“Hurry up,” the lieutenant colonel said, ignoring the saluting guard and beckoning to the truck behind him. “You have one hour to clean the garage. It is your honor to be able to serve the Führer. You must cherish this labor.”

Three men of different sizes jumped down from the truck, holding cleaning tools. The guard who had greeted them frowned, because these three men gave him an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

“Lieutenant Colonel, why has the cleaning staff been changed this time?” In the end, the guard did not think about it any further. He just smiled and asked casually as he opened the iron gate behind him.

“Oh… a change of personnel to avoid any accidents from getting too familiar,” he said, and then led the three cleaning workers into the underground parking lot for the Führer’s guards. And the soldier, seeing his superior leading the men in, lit a cigarette and stood by the iron gate, slacking off.

As soon as they entered the parking lot, they saw a dozen or so Mercedes-Benz cars neatly parked in their designated spots. To be able to travel with Akado’s car, these cars were by no means ordinary cars, but luxury cars meticulously produced by the Mercedes-Benz company.

Ghost and the others came into the garage and, without even glancing at these luxury cars, went straight to the connection point of the ventilation shaft. They took off their disguised cleaner’s coats. Their bodies were wrapped with pliers, hammers, and all sorts of other tools. They took all the tools off their bodies and then put their cleaner’s work clothes back on.

The lieutenant colonel stood at the entrance, keeping a lookout for the three of them. Ghost and the Six of Hearts began their tense work. They used pliers to unscrew the screws that had rusted shut many years ago, only to find that the entire iron grille, due to its age, had rusted into a single piece with the iron pipe inside.

Because of the open environment of the garage, they could not use a hammer to strike this iron grille and could only pry at it bit by bit with their tools. Sweat dripped from the tip of Ghost’s nose onto the concrete floor, and time passed, minute by minute, as they worked.

With a soft cough, Ghost quickly reached for the cleaning tools beside him, stood up, and pretended to be sweeping. The Six of Hearts was quite tall, so he didn’t stand up, but just put his hands on the ground and pretended to be wiping the corner of the wall with a cloth.

It was clear that three people busy in a corner was a very strange thing, so Paul held his tools in his arms, pushed off the wall with his two legs, and his whole body slid under a car. He hid the tools, then quickly crawled out from the other side of the car and also pretended to be working.

He had just gotten into position when two guards walked in from the entrance. The two guards, with submachine guns on their backs, walked into the parking lot, chatting and laughing. At the entrance, they gave a military salute to the lieutenant colonel and then continued their patrol. They glanced at Paul, then told a joke, laughed, and walked into the distance. Because Paul had just slid on the ground, his back was covered in dust, so he had to turn around bit by bit, facing the two patrolling soldiers who were on their routine inspection.

The sound of the two men’s talking and laughing gradually faded away. Only then did Paul dare to turn around, let out a long sigh of relief, and begin to pat down his work clothes. And on the other side of a car, Ghost and the Six of Hearts began to dismantle the rusted ventilation pipe again.

“Clang!” With a soft, crisp sound, a corner of the rusted iron railing at the mouth of the ventilation pipe came loose, revealing a gap. Ghost’s eyes lit up. He immediately grabbed a screwdriver and began to desperately pry at the gap. Paul stuffed his glove into the gap to prevent the screwdriver from making noise as it was pried back and forth.

With this gap, the movements of the several men became much faster. In a short while, the second corner was pried up. The two taller men used all their strength, and this rusty iron grille was pulled open from one side like a heavy door.

“According to the design drawing, because Akado is the Führer, the entire Presidential Residence—that is, the current Führer’s Residence—has been renovated once. So the ventilation opening on that side should be new. We can just unscrew the screws to get in,” Ghost said. “Paul, you and I will go over…”

At one end of the corridor, a group of German soldiers came over, chattering. They were all wearing SS uniforms and looked tall, strong, and distinguished. Ghost glanced at his pocket watch, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and looked at Paul. “You go over by yourself. There’s no time left! Quick!”

He then had no choice but to push the iron grille back to its original position and then use his body to block the gap that could not be closed because of the prying. And Paul, who had already squeezed through, had no choice but to crawl with his tools toward another ventilation opening not far away.

“Get in the cars! We’re leaving!” the leading SS officer said, greeting the garage manager lieutenant colonel, and then got into the car with his soldiers. The engine began to roar. Ghost even smiled and nodded at a German soldier. And under his feet, he had inconspicuously blocked a rusty screw behind his heel.

None of the German soldiers who had rushed in had paid any attention. The dark ground had also covered up a lot of the metal debris and fallen dust. So when the several cars drove out of the underground garage, no one had noticed these small changes in detail. But a thrilling scene still played out. As the last car drove away, the few tools that Paul had just hidden under the car were left on the ground, and yet no one had noticed.

And on the other side, Paul had already unscrewed all the screws. Tiptoeing in the brightly lit Führer’s private garage, he placed the brand-new, heavy iron grille to one side, leaned against the load-bearing pillar, and gasped for breath.

With his back to the pillar, he took out the explosives from his pocket, placed them one by one at his feet, took out the pencil timer from his breast pocket, and then took out the small pair of pliers that came with the box, preparing to crush the small glass vial inside.

But only then did he discover that no matter how rigorous the training had been, he would still feel nervous after arriving on the scene. The hand with which he held the pliers was trembling nonstop and would not obey his commands.

With the first pencil timer, because he was trembling and used too much force, he had snapped the timing device in one go. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, threw the broken pencil timer to the side, took out a second one, and continued to operate it, but failed again.

He then took out a third. He successfully set the timing device, then he inserted the pencil timer into the explosive and continued to set another one. To be on the safe side, Ghost’s plan was to use two bombs to detonate at the same time to destroy the entire car. With the experience of success, Paul was much faster when setting the second pencil timer and also succeeded on the first try.

He held the bombs and, bit by bit, avoided the line of sight of the soldiers in the duty room. He crawled to the bottom of Akado’s special luxury Mercedes-Benz and installed the two explosives next to the car’s fuel tank.

But before he had time to get out from under the car, he heard the voices of the car’s driver and the Führer’s secretary, Anna, confirming the itinerary as they walked over. There was no escape! Under the car, Paul reached for the pistol at his waist.

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