Book 4: Chapter 24: Retreat

At the laboratory door, Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny hurried over with Captain Bock, followed by Lin Feng. This guy should have been with the other assault members, but as a signalman, he didn’t have to stick to the front lines. At the last minute, he slipped into the tunnel and caught up with Skorzeny.

“Lieutenant Colonel, you finally made it!” Madame Monica greeted them, her face showing a bit of shame.

“Madame Monica?” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny’s eyes flashed, and he gave Joey a searching look.

“She was trapped here by the Allied Forces all along. The betrayers are the Roberts!” Joey explained it briefly.

Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny nodded. In the current situation, every Superpowered Being was important to the Allied Forces, so it was unlikely they would plant another spy in the Gentlemen Alliance. Madame Monica’s suspicion was basically cleared.

“Lieutenant Colonel, why isn’t Baron von Wurdenbeller here?” Madame Monica asked in confusion.

“He’s right here!” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny gave a bitter smile and carefully pulled out a little bat from his chest.

This Vampire Bat was bigger than the one Baron von Wurdenbeller usually turned into, with silver stripes on its wings. It was slumped unconscious now.

“How did the baron end up like this?” Madame Monica widened her beautiful eyes and asked in shock.

“The Lieutenant Colonel and I ran into the ‘Justice League’ led by Captain America, while Baron von Wurdenbeller encountered a cardinal and two Ascetic Monks!” Captain Bock said coldly, his face showing a trace of anger. “The Reich knew Italy was unreliable all along, but who would have thought the Vatican had already made peace with the Allied Forces!”

“Lieutenant Colonel, did you find where the three-nation leaders were?” Grant asked cautiously.

Joker was a little worried in his mind. Joey had called everyone over without thinking before. Even though they found something in this lab and got many documents, if they accidentally messed up Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny’s mission, Commander Oranienburg would settle scores back in Germany later, even if he didn’t say anything now. At the least, their rewards would be much smaller.

“We found it!” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny frowned deeply, shaking his head. “But I suspect now that the Allied Forces purposefully leaked the three-nation summit info to lure the Reich’s Superpowered elites here and wipe them all out.”

As Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny briefly explained, he told everyone to collect the documents in the lab. Earlier, after the Gentlemen Alliance split up, except for the two Serial Killers with their own evil plans, the other three soon found the core area and met again quickly to attack the biggest hidden shelter in the underground network.

But that place turned out to be a complete trap. Around the paths near the shelter, a few of the Justice League’s Superhumans were placed each time, totaling around twenty people. If they added the Superpowered Beings at the other smaller shelters, the Justice League had at least thirty members in Casablanca.

This situation couldn’t be just the betrayer’s doing. Even though the Allied Forces had put together the Justice League, these Superhumans were secretive—they couldn’t have gathered so many in a short time. The Allied Forces must have called them in from the start of the plan; maybe the three-nation leaders’ meeting place wasn’t even in Casablanca.

The net woven by the Justice League pushed Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny and his two companions step by step into danger. Plus, the Lieutenant Colonel and the others were ready to die for the Reich anyway, and they almost sacrificed their lives for it.

“We survived this long for two reasons,” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny said with dread. “First, the Allied Forces didn’t expect us to shell Casablanca with the Gneisenau, which made the Justice League retreat into the underground network they didn’t know well. And with the Baron guiding us, we could use the terrain to our advantage. The second reason is we had Captain Bock.”

At the most critical moments, if it wasn’t for Captain Bock, an explosives expert, often blowing up the paths—and the Justice League’s Superpowered Beings not wanting to die alongside a few trapped prey—they would’ve been captured by the enemy long ago.

“We have to admit the Heracles Plan was doomed to fail from the beginning. The main goal of attacking the Allied leaders was impossible from the start unless the Gentlemen Alliance could control all of Casablanca. They would’ve had to find the leaders’ real location that very first night here!”

Captain Bock still had a cold face, carefully bending down to pick up the lab papers one by one off the ground. He didn’t miss even the torn pieces, calmly saying, “If not for you finding this lab, we surely would have died here for the Reich.”

“Bang!” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny suddenly punched the desk hard, and a marble lab table broke in two under his hand.

“Gerthard, Kluge, you’ve earned your keep!” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny stared at the documents in his hand, his face flushed. “This lab is a key part of the Allied Forces’ Super Soldier Program!”

“Lieutenant Colonel, can you understand these documents?” Madame Monica asked doubtfully.

“No, I can’t get the details, but some of the summaries here are a lot like parts of the Aryan Ark—all about strengthening living things,” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny said excitedly. “With the Allied Forces’ research materials, the Aryan Ark can make big progress. The Gentlemen Alliance will soon have a lot of new Superpowered Beings.”

“With our German Army soldiers’ quality, I trust the Superpowered Being transformation rate will be really high!” Captain Bock’s cold face showed a hint of joy too.

The Apostles present at the scene glanced quietly at one another. They were witnesses of history and knew how this war would end. Though the history of these two timelines had some differences—with Nazi Germany capturing Moscow and almost taking all of Europe—it was still fighting the whole world. The key problem was that Germany was running out of people; many German Army soldiers on the front were teenage boys now.

Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny and Captain Bock had high hopes for the Aryan Ark, but the Apostles knew Germany had chosen the wrong path for strategic development.

The Allied Forces’ future weapons work focused on the Manhattan Project and strategic bombers, not the Super Soldier plan for individual strength. History had shown how powerful nuclear weapons are. A weapon like that can’t be balanced just by adding a few Superpowered Beings.

If Germany poured everything into nuclear weapons now, they might have made an atomic bomb before the Americans. One atomic bomb would wipe a whole army off the battlefield, and no country could handle that loss. With one or two atomic bombs, the war would be over, no matter what anyone wanted.

Of course, the Apostles weren’t foolish enough to warn Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny. Germany’s top minds of that era were famous for being brilliant and stubborn at the same time. They just needed to finish their Main Quest. Since Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny appreciated what they’d done, it would be smooth sailing now.

“Lieutenant Colonel, how do we get out now?” Grant asked with a worried expression, holding a big pile of documents.

There was no way to put this stuff into Storage Space under Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny’s watch; they had to hold it for now. This was the problem without Dr. Keller: if that woman hadn’t betrayed everyone, they wouldn’t have to carry all the useful and useless papers. After all, the world’s first computer only came in 1946, and they had no time to photograph all these documents with miniature cameras. They just had to stuff them into bags and carry them out.

“Don’t worry. With Madame Monica here, the underground is our domain!” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny sighed suddenly. “Too bad we don’t have enough time left; the Allied Forces’ first troops are probably inside already. Otherwise, I’d really like to go back and check the core area—see if those big shots were even there!”

“Lieutenant Colonel, I’ll blow up all the paths around here to buy some time for Madame Monica!” Captain Bock threw his two big bags at Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny and ran into the tunnel.

Madame Monica walked gracefully to the center of the space and spread her arms. Starting from her limbs, her whole body quickly turned into a human-shaped sand whirlwind. Her little parasol and clothes all mixed into the sandstorm. Finally, she completely became wind and sand, vanishing from the spot.

The sand whirlwind suddenly shot up, drilling into the hard cement ceiling like a drill bit. Bits of lime and dust from the ceiling didn’t fall down; instead, they all soaked into the sandstorm. In moments, a man-made tunnel opened up above everyone.

“Lieutenant Colonel, it’s at least thirty meters down to the ground here. Can Madame Monica hold out?” Grant looked up in amazement, careful to ask another question.

“Rest easy. Rarely does anything stop Madame Monica, except for some special places. The Queen of Sandstorm is our trump card and the Gentlemen Alliance’s strongest Superhuman,” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny said proudly.

“Let’s go home!” Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny leaped up, grabbed the rocky wall of the tunnel, and climbed quickly using Agility.

“Qin Lun boss, are we sticking to the original plan?” Lin Feng watched Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny’s back, a flash in his eyes. He asked cautiously in the Team Channel.

“Heh, didn’t you already slip the intel from Little Lian and Lili into those documents?” The Serial Killer, who’d been quiet until now, lifted his head a little. A sly look flickered across his eyes.

“Then let’s go!” Lin Feng moved toward Joey, trying to please him.

“You’re with me!” Grant stared deeply at Joey, suddenly grabbing the back of Lin Feng’s collar. “Joey boss doesn’t need you around!”

“Joey boss?” Lin Feng paused in shock, stopping when he saw Joey. He’d thought Joey was Qin Lun.

“Hmm,” Grant nodded faintly, turning around to ask, “Joey, aren’t you coming yet?”

“You go first. I have a few things to handle,” Joey lowered his eyes, staring at the bundle in his hands. A strange smile curved on his lips.