Red winter

Chapter V

If I followed official secrecy and national security recommendations, most likely this chapter, or even this book, would not exist. But I think it would be good to add to the narrative the detail that I will write below for a better understanding of the final course of this story.

The end of winter was approaching, as well as the ball for the diplomatic delegations involved in what was called "Project Markermeer", but thanks to the work of the Austrian secret service, a great event took place before the two events already mentioned, an operation to capture a spy base on Austrian territory.

The discovery of this place involved half a dozen informants and relied on the stupidity of those being investigated, like telling a prostitute the location of the shed.

So, at the end of the morning. when the sun was still beginning to appear on the horizon and the night's snow still covered the landscape, I, leading a battalion of armed policemen, invaded the shed near Vienna, close to a forest cut by a river..

We entered by breaking down the front door and entered as quickly as possible and as an immediate reaction we received shots, which were answered in the same way.

The place was simply divided, a few walls, a single floor, but it was enough to house the twelve people, men and women, who at that moment were shooting at me and the police. The shooting was intense, tables, cupboards, boxes and the walls themselves were used as a barricade, but little by little we advanced on the enemy.

After a few minutes, windows had already been turned into shards, bullet shells accumulated on the floor, tables and boxes had holes and the floor was stained with blood by the dead, most of them communists themselves, who at that moment were reduced to five, one of them the red-haired man who attacked me at the Opera House.

When everything seemed to be over two of our enemies started to flee through a back door, which we had ignored the existence. While the cops tackled the remnants, I took it upon myself to chase the fugitives into the snow-covered woods.

It was a dramatic setting for a dramatic event.

The target was two people, the red-haired spy and a woman, as young as the first. The spy led the way while he pulled the woman by the hand, running in such a desperate way that sometimes he stumbled or made his, possible, lover almost fall.

The chase went on for meters through the snow, dodging trees and rocks and finally reaching the river. The frozen water provided a dangerous but perfect bridge for an escape into denser vegetation. It was a race against time, or they ran away or I captured them, it was the occasion to use modernity and its ability to kill.

Standing on the bank of the river 1 picked up my pistol and took aim. I fired and the shot hit the fragile ice that, with each new step of the fugitives, threatened to give way and open a direct slit for water at unimaginable temperatures.

The second round went straight past the targets but close enough to their heads to hear the sound of the bullet ripping through the air. The third shot hit one of the targets. The young woman was hit in the back, but the bullet was lethal, she fell on the ice and blood began to stain her clothes and then the ice with abundant red blood.

Missing the young lady's hand, the redhead stopped and looked back. The scene he saw was perhaps the most painful scene he had seen in years. His, possibly, lover lying on the ice, bleeding and the murder weapon still in my hands on the riverbank. He screamed like a madman and his gaze turned to pain and agony at the sight of the death of the person he had worked hardest to protect since the police authorities arrived.

He tried to approach the body but the fragile ice began to crack and in a matter of few seconds it gave way and the body that was once running over the frozen river was now under him, it was impossible for there to be a farewell to the newest corpse in the world.

Before the fourth shot he managed to escape, amidst tears and slips he entered the middle of the forest and fled my sight.

The operation was ultimately a relative success, with most of the Communists killed, vital documents seized, and a spy ring dismantled. The only fatality on the side of order and law was a young policeman who fought bravely for his country. As for the body of the young lady under the river, it was carried by the river to the Danube and was lost forever.