Chapter 73: Angel Blocks the Gun
Gunfire and artillery thundered without pause.
Bursts of alternating fire tore through the Christmas decorations hanging over the streets. Red and green ornaments were ripped apart in midair. Velvet ribbons and pine leaves spun through the snow like shredded flags. Electrical wires were severed one after another, and the exposed current crackled viciously in the cold.
The wooden utility poles had already been scorched black by the heat of repeated impacts. Smoke rose in thick coils and collided with the falling snow, turning the night into a chaos of ash, frost, and fire.
A restaurant that had been overflowing with customers only a few hours earlier had already been blasted into ruins.
The surviving policemen used overturned tables and broken masonry as cover, firing back in organized volleys against the cavalrymen sweeping through the streets with sabers drawn. From time to time, they hurled Molotov cocktails to force the horses back and block the charge.
The Royal Cavalry were true elites, men selected from the best cavalry units in the army. But in Berlin, their symbolic and political value far exceeded their actual battlefield utility.
Street fighting was not the open countryside. It was not a forest road or a rolling plain.
And they had never received systematic urban warfare training.
Their horses, which had once been their greatest strength, had now become a burden.
One mount after another went down under concentrated rifle fire, throwing its rider or collapsing in the middle of the road. Many cavalrymen were forced to crouch behind the carcasses of their own horses and fire from there like trapped infantry.
"Send in the armored cars! Now!" the Royal Cavalry commander roared, his face twisted with fury. "Are you just going to stand there and watch?"
He barked fresh orders at the artillery crews to adjust their guns and pound the shattered restaurant again, then turned and shouted for support from the Rapid Response Force.
The officer commanding the Quick Reaction Force looked at him in silence.
Then, in one synchronized motion, the machine guns mounted on the armored cars slowly turned and pointed at the cavalry instead.
"Officer," he said coldly, "surrender your weapon and relinquish command immediately."
The cavalry commander stared at him in disbelief.
"What the hell are you saying? It's bad enough you refuse to suppress the rebellious police, but now you are pointing your guns at friendly forces? Have you lost your mind?"
The Rapid Response Force commander did not answer at once. He simply drew his pistol, thumbed back the hammer, and leveled it.
"No," he said. "You are the ones who have lost your minds."
News that the Rapid Response Force had turned against the cavalry spread like wildfire through the capital and reached Karl Tod almost at once.
At that very moment, in the district near the Berlin Police Headquarters, the last policeman still resisting was knocked unconscious beneath the hooves of the surrounding cavalry. Their horses reared and stamped, and the officer vanished beneath them, his fate unknown.
Around him, bodies were strewn across the road. Some wore cavalry uniforms. Far more wore police coats.
"Send a telegram to General Staff Headquarters!" Karl Tod shouted, his voice cracking with rage. "Tell them the Rapid Response Force has rebelled as well! At once!"
Inside the Reichswehr Commander in Chief's office, Seckt paced restlessly by the window.
The black tea on his desk remained untouched, long since gone cold, a silent reflection of the turmoil in his chest.
Drew, by contrast, appeared entirely at ease.
He had already drunk nearly half a pot of tea by himself, and still he kept filling cup after cup, as though he were merely waiting for the inevitable conclusion to unfold.
Then the telephone rang again.
Seckt seized the receiver at once.
"What is it?"
The voice on the other end came back without delay.
"The Rapid Response Force has mutinied, Commander in Chief! They are helping the police disarm us!"
Seckt froze.
His grip tightened on the receiver. For a long moment he said nothing. Then, as though forcing himself to focus on the most vital point, he asked in a low, dangerous voice:
"Did you open fire?"
There was a short silence.
Then came the answer.
"The police challenged our right to operate and opened fire first. We had no choice but to return fire."
Seckt slowly lowered the receiver onto the desk.
Then he pressed a hand to his throbbing temple and exhaled.
Once shots had been fired, the last possibility of calming the situation without bloodshed had disappeared. The crisis was already spreading beyond control.
What disturbed him even more was the Rapid Response Force position.
He knew De Mengnade well.
That man would never have openly rebelled merely out of personal gratitude to Jörg. If he had chosen to turn against orders, then he must have seen something decisive, something that convinced him beyond doubt.
Before Seckt could pursue the thought further, the phone rang again.
This time it was De Mengnade himself.
"Commander in Chief, I must report something to you immediately."
Seckt lifted the receiver but remained silent.
De Mengnade's voice was tightly controlled, yet the fury beneath it was unmistakable.
"The Royal Cavalry Regiment ignored your order not to fire. They brought artillery into the streets. Those lunatics, those worm ridden fools, are shelling the police."
His breathing was audible for a moment before he continued.
"I formally request that their operations be halted at once. This matter must be reinvestigated from the ground up. There is external manipulation involved, I am certain of it. If I am lying, I will be the first man to stand before the execution wall when this ends."
Seckt still said nothing.
Cavalry. Artillery. Unauthorized fire.
With just those facts, the outline of the truth was already emerging in his mind.
He hung up the phone.
Then he turned.
His usually restrained eyes had become dark and motionless, like deep water before a storm.
"Did you arrange this?"
He stepped toward Drew.
"Arschloch. Answer me!"
In one violent movement, Seckt seized Drew by the collar.
Though old age had already hollowed out his strength, the shaking of his arms made it clear how much force he was pouring into the grip.
Drew shoved him back.
"Calm down, Seckt!"
But Seckt lunged forward again, and the two aging men, both long past their prime, crashed against the sofa and began grappling like soldiers who had forgotten their years.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Seckt snarled, swinging a fist. "Damn you! Damn you!"
"Of course I know what I've done!"
Drew blocked the blow and shouted back just as fiercely.
"I am securing your power. I am cutting off Hindenburg's influence in the army for you. I am clearing the road so you can advance further!"
His face had lost all pretense now.
"I have laid every path for you. All you had to do was walk it!"
At last Seckt stopped.
His fist trembled in the air, but he did not strike again.
Seeing that hesitation, Drew straightened his coat and pressed on mercilessly.
"You know perfectly well how much power Jörg already holds. You know exactly what he is doing. If we do not take this once in a lifetime opportunity while he is in Norway and the President is gravely ill, then once he returns and joins hands with Hindenburg, you will be finished."
His voice dropped lower, heavier.
"And not just you. All of us. All the old guard. The cavalry. The men who built this army. Every last one of us will be swept aside."
"You can call me selfish. You can say I care more about my own position than the state. I don't care."
Drew's eyes flashed with something like desperation.
"My father commanded cavalry before me. I inherited that arm of service with my own blood and my family's name. I will not stand by and watch some twenty year old butcher tear it apart in the name of reform."
Everything was now laid bare.
Seckt's breathing grew heavier. He looked toward the door, as though he might call the guards in and have Drew arrested on the spot.
But before he could speak, Drew delivered the final blow.
"Think carefully, Seckt."
His tone was colder now, stripped of all agitation.
"Arresting me would be easy. But when this affair is over, you will be implicated as well. Jörg may not kill you, but he will absolutely drive you out of the Reichswehr."
He stepped closer.
"Do you really want to leave the place you spent your entire life fighting for?"
.....
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