BEEP.
BEEP BEEP.
The cockpit was chaos. Warning lights bled red across every instrument. The altimeter swung. The horizon line tilted and refused to settle.
Werner's hands were slick on the control stick. He adjusted it, overcompensated, adjusted again. The plane shuddered around him.
He looked back.
A bead of sweat falling down his forehead.
Two men lay in the rear of the cabin, clad in dark leather coats. They had not moved in some time....
Werner turned back to the instruments.
BEEP.
His left hand moved to his shoulder instinctively. The fabric beneath his fingers was wet and warm. He pressed down hard, exhaled through his teeth. It hurt. The bullet was still inside his flesh.
Below him, through the scratched and rain-streaked glass, the lights of Frankfurt were beginning to appear. Distant.
Two Hours Earlier, Frankfurt – Germany
"Everything is prepared, my Führer."
Heisenberg announced it.
He stood beside Paul and Kesselring, along with a handful of other officers and officials. A handpicked circle. The inner circle. Men who carried the highest security clearance.
They stood before a large window overlooking the long runway of Frankfurt Airport. That morning, a massive military transport had arrived. Now the runway was alive with ground crews moving and fuel lines spread across the tarmac
Kesselring watched the squadron of turbine-powered jets being fueled one by one, his arms folded, his expression carrying a particular pride.
"Truly marvelous," he said quietly. "That technology will surely protect Prometheus."
"Speak of the devil," Heisenberg murmured.
His gaze had shifted to the far end of the runway, where the doors of a large hangar were rolling open. Slowly, deliberately, a single aircraft emerged into the grey morning light.
It was unlike anything else on the runway.
Where the jets were sleek and angular, built for speed, this machine carried a different kind of presence. Massive. Four engines. Its wingspan so wide that the ground crew walking beneath it looked diminished.
Paul said nothing. He simply watched it roll forward, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression unreadable.
"The Junkers 390," Heisenberg said quietly, as though naming something sacred. "Modified. Stripped of everything unnecessary."
No one responded to that.
The eyes of every man in the room had drifted from the aircraft to the tarmac below, where a massive transporter had come to a stop at the edge of the runway. It sat heavy and low, its cargo concealed beneath thick canvas straps.
A team of specialists in white protective suits moved around it with slow, deliberate care.
Paul watched them work.
The canvas was removed in sections, folded back with almost ceremonial patience. What lay beneath it was not large. That was perhaps the most unsettling thing about it.
Paul sighed. The glass of champagne in his hand felt almost insulting to the gravity of the moment. He looked down at it for a second, then slowly lifted his gaze toward the sky.
He squinted.
There was something. Small at first. A shimmer, barely distinguishable from the grey. Then larger. And larger still.
It had a peculiar golden bloom, warm and impossible against the afternoon light, its shape growing until Paul could finally discern what it was.
His lips parted.
"Eagle..."
That was the last word he said.
His eyes changed. A faint, unnatural golden glow moved through them, barely visible, like light seen through deep water. His body did not move. His expression did not change. He simply stood there, glass in hand, looking at something.
The glass slipped from his fingers.
It shattered at his feet in a thousand pieces, champagne spreading silently across the floor.
"My Führer!"
"My Führer!"
The voices reached him as though from a great distance, muffled and indistinct, echoing through something vast and hollow.
"Werner..."Paul whispered.
Then—
Blink.
Blink.
Paul widend his eyes.
He was back.
Gustaf stood directly before him, eyes locked onto his, searching.
"My Führer, are you alright?" His voice was urgent, low, meant only for Paul.
Paul looked at him for a moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"Yes."
He glanced around the room once, taking stock of the faces, the expressions, the silence that had fallen over the assembled men. Then he turned back to Gustaf, and something in his gaze shifted. Hardened.
"Although there is something you must do for me."
Gustaf stepped closer. Paul leaned in, his voice dropping to almost nothing, a few quiet sentences that no one else in the room could hear.
When he finished, Gustaf pulled back. He looked at Paul for a moment, studying him. There was something sad in Paul's expression.
Then he gave a single nod.
"I will arrange it," he answered.
In that very moment, behind the two of them, the squadron finally moved.
One by one the jets accelerated down the runway, their turbines screaming, lifting their dark silhouettes into the sky. They climbed steeply, forming their protective formation.
And then the Junker. Slower. Heavier.
It lifted from the runway last. Its four engines shook the air. Its shadow swept across the tarmac, across the faces of the ground crew who stood and watched without speaking, across the shattered champagne glass still lying at Paul's feet.
It climbed.
And climbed.
Until it too was nothing but a dark shape against the clouds.
Heralds. That was what they looked like. Dark heralds of something that had no name yet, something that existed only in the minds of the few men standing at this window and in the cold mathematics of Heisenberg's calculations.
Paul tilted his head.
Gustaf had already left.
Berlin, Ministry of Inner Security
"I cannot wait to get my hands on him."
Heydrich said it openly, without lowering his voice, cutting through the steak on the plate before him.
"Yes, Sir. They should have received him from Captain Prien already."
Heydrich shook his head slowly.
"Unbelievable. Truly unbelievable."
A faint smile crossed his lips, carrying no warmth whatsoever.
"What a story. And what a way to end it. Friedrich Lehmann, traitor of Germany, suddenly aboard a German U-boat."
He cut another piece.
"Fate has a strange sense of humor."
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Heydrich chewed, unhurried, swallowing before he answered.
"Come in."
A man in a suit stepped through the door. He was young, neat.
He stopped a few paces from the table.
"Sir." A pause. "We have received word from Spain."
Heydrich set down his knife. Not quickly. Deliberately.
"And?"
The man's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Lehmann is gone, Sir."
The room was very quiet for a moment.
Heydrich looked at the man. Then down at his plate. Then back at the man.
"Gone," he repeated.
"Yes, Sir. He overpowered Captain Prien, discharged his weapon twice into the cell lock, and escaped through a service exit on the western perimeter. By the time the guards responded—"
"That will do."
The man stopped immediately.
Heydrich picked up his knife again. He looked at the steak for a long moment. Then he set the knife back down.
"Leave me."
"Sir—"
"Leave me."
The officer and the suited man exchanged a glance and withdrew. The door closed quietly behind them.
Heydrich sat alone at the table.
The steak was getting cold.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
Heydrich's face rose with anger. He drew breath to speak—
A piece of paper slid under the door.
He stopped.
"A piece of paper," he said out loud, the words carrying pure disbelief.
He stood up immediately, his knife clattering onto the table. His pistol was in his hand before he reached the door. He pulled it open in a single motion.
The corridor was empty. Both directions.
He stepped out, looked left, looked right. Nothing. Whoever had delivered it was already gone.
He shook his head slowly and pulled the door closed.
He looked down at the paper in his hand for a moment, then unfolded it.
He began to read.
With every line, something changed in his expression.
Then his head rose.
His eyes carried a distinctive look.
The look of a hunter who has caught the scent.
He turned, letting go of the paper.
It caught the light breeze from the open window and swirled upward for a moment, drifting, turning slowly in the air before settling.
One line visible for just a fraction of a second.
Rheinbridge, Cologne.
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