Novel Full Chapter 638: The Butcher’s Wrath
Chapter 638: The Butcher’s Wrath
The walls of the concrete shack were pocked with bullet holes from an older war, remnants of the Belgian retreat.
A single oil lamp lit the room, casting jittery shadows on the rusted rifles stacked in the corner and the freshly oiled Garand pattern laid out on the table.
The air smelled of sweat, cordite, and diesel.
“They’ll pass through the Groveroute before sunrise,” said Captain Makono, pointing at a faded topographical map of the jungle highway.
His voice was calm, confident. “Six Werwolf vehicles, light armor. Standard mineral escort package. This is our chance.”
His lieutenant, a wiry man named Tamba, cracked his knuckles. “No surrender, no prisoners. Just like they did to us in Kivu.”
Makono nodded. “We hit them hard. Ambush from both ridges. Burn the lead truck, mine the tail. Our scouts are in the trees. We’ll know when they leave Kasaï station.”
An American leaned in the corner of the room, silent until now.
Tall, pale, with a slight Southern drawl that never quite faded. His name was irrelevant. He was a ’consultant,’ sent from Monrovia. OSS, though no one said it aloud.
“They’re not gods,” he said. “They bleed like anyone else. But don’t let ’em regroup. If even one gets away, Bruno will send hell itself in after you.”
Makono met his gaze. “Then none will leave.”
The eight-wheeled E-10 personnel carriers rumbled over the cracked jungle road, kicking up clouds of red dust.
Palm trees lined either side like silent sentinels.
The mercs inside wore sun-faded splinter camo, their Stg-25/30 assault rifles. MG-42s and their newly standardized Panzerfaust 1 rocket propelled grenade.
Each man bore a patch: the wolfsangel of the Werwolf Group.
Sergeant Kappel reclined in the rear troop bay, helmet off, cigarette dangling.
“Goddamn jungle,” he muttered. “Always wet. Always stinks.”
“You volunteered,” Soldat Nagel said, sipping tepid water from a plastic pouch.
“Yeah. Because the money’s good, and I like shooting communists. I didn’t say I liked sweating.”
The comms crackled. Lieutenant Falk’s voice came through from the lead vehicle. “Eyes up. Approaching choke point.”
In the underbrush above the ridgeline, Makono exhaled slowly. His finger hovered over wired detonator. The lead vehicle hit the trap first.
A shaped charge tore through the engine block of the lead E-10, flipping it sideways and setting it ablaze.
Semi-automatic and Automatic fire erupted from both sides of the road. Bullets pinged off steel plating. Shouts filled the jungle.
Kappel dove out of his bay, barking orders. His men dismounted under fire, forming a wedge, returning fire with brutal precision. The jungle turned into a meat grinder.
Rebels died in waves, but they were fanatical, motivated by betrayal. They’d been promised freedom. What they got were German PMCs and foreign conglomerates.
One Werwolf trooper was dragged into the undergrowth screaming.
Another, cornered behind a burning tire, jammed a grenade into his vest and waited. Three rebels rushed him, he pulled the pin.
BOOM.
The fighting lasted twelve minutes. By the time it ended, four APCs were destroyed. Eight Werwolf mercs were dead. Two made it out on foot, dragging a third wounded man.
Over a hundred rebels lay scattered, most unrecognizable. Still, by the rebel standards, it was a victory.
—
Film captured from the battlefield, as well as photographs lie scattered across a table.
On the other side of the border in Monrovia the American operative leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “They pulled it off. Better than expected.”
A Liberian intelligence liaison grunted. “At what cost? They won’t hold that territory for long.”
“They don’t need to,” the American said. “They needed a message. A story.”
A film projector was brought out, where the reel began to spool up before displaying a video.
“The oppressed rise. German dogs fall. Freedom burns in the heart of Afrika.”
—
Days later, across the Atlantic in Washington D.C. A group of officials huddled in a windowless room, faces illuminated by the video projection.
“Werwolf casualties confirmed. Equipment loss confirmed. Rebels successfully extracted. No air support response detected. Likely caught them flat-footed.”
A man in a three-piece suit, the Africa desk lead, sighed. “What’s Berlin’s response?”
“Bruno’s response is the problem,” another replied. “He doesn’t do press conferences. He does counterinsurgency…. Do you remember how he purged Vienna?”
Silence.
“Prep the deniability plan,” said the first. “No fingerprints. No witnesses. No survivors.”
A junior analyst muttered, “Then why’d we even support them?”
The man in the suit answered flatly: “Because Mittelafrika doesn’t belong to Germany. Not anymore. And someone needs to remind them of that.”
—
The roar of the engines still echoed in Bruno’s ears as he stepped off his personal plane at Berlin’s airfield.
A sleek black car awaited him on the tarmac, the Reichsadler painted discreetly along the doors, the interior scented faintly of cigar smoke and leather polish.
The sun had not yet risen, Berlin lay as it always was. Brilliant, prosperous, and ever detached from the world’s problems.
And yet Bruno himself could not say he felt he same.
He said nothing during the ride.
By the time he entered the secure chamber beneath the Reichswehr command complex, the room was already tense.
Maps of Mittelafrika were projected across the walls, red markers blinking at the coordinates of the ambush.
Analysts, generals, and Werwolf liaisons stood to attention. Some whispered updates. Others just waited, afraid to speak first.
Bruno set his gloves on the table. His overcoat bore the faint dust of alpine air, his demeanor carved from glacial resolve.
“Who among you,” he asked quietly, “approved Monrovia as a safe corridor for foreign advisors?”
No one answered.
A moment passed. Then General Halberstadt cleared his throat.
“It was never formal, my lord. There were… trade discussions, diplomatic envoys sent. A peacekeeping outpost run by so-called neutral observers—”
“—Funded by Washington,” Bruno cut in. “Staffed by off-book personnel who trained those butchers in the jungle. We counted the casings. American brass.”
He turned to a wall-mounted display. One of the Werwolf captains had recorded the ambush from his vehicle’s built in camera, right up to the moment he pulled the pin and dove into the jungle to detonate his final grenade.
The room went quiet as the screen fizzled to white.
“They fought to the last. They died with honor,” Bruno said. “And now their blood calls for recompense.”
He turned toward the high table. “We will provide it.”
Bruno placed a leather-bound folder onto the table, opening it to reveal dossiers stamped with the insignia of the Council for Decolonization.
“I want full coordination with the local provisional councils. Not just our loyalists. Everyone on the ground who is willing to pick up arms and fight this rot in their own lands.”
Some of the older officers shifted uncomfortably.
“You mean to arm the natives directly?” General Strauss asked.
Bruno nodded.
“I mean to give them ownership of this counter-insurgency. Call it sovereignty, call it self-defense, I don’t care. But we’ll embed Werwolf instructors with every loyal battalion. We’ll create trust, by putting blood and breath into their struggle. We don’t need to rule them. We need them to rule for us.”
He let that hang in the air.
“Start with the northern Congo. Then push east. Anyone who resists coordination is assumed hostile. And tell our contacts in the region: the wolves are howling again.”
The map shifted.
Bruno’s finger tapped the blinking dot labeled Monrovia.
“This is no longer a diplomatic zone. This is a launchpad for terrorism against the Reich.”
He turned to the Luftwaffe liaison.
“How soon can you flatten it?”
The man blinked. “Sir… Monrovia is a city. A capital.”
“Yes,” Bruno said flatly. “A capital of subversion. You think I care if it has a flag?”
Silence again.
“Then I want a clean strike. No cruise missiles. No television spectacle. Fuel air bombs. Napalm. Thermobarics. Make it look like God got angry.”
“But… the Americans—”
“—Will howl, yes,” Bruno said. “But only once. And then they’ll understand. This is what happens when you give terrorists safe harbor.”
A younger intelligence officer raised his hand.
“Sir, do we go public?”
Bruno exhaled slowly.
“Yes. Have the Council for Decolonization issue a statement: that they condemn this attack on transitional African sovereignty and that they requested German assistance. Frame it as mutual cooperation against foreign interference.”
“And Werwolf?”
Bruno smiled faintly. “Werwolf doesn’t exist. They’re just advisors.”
He crossed the room, paused at the edge of the conference table.
“Tell them,” he said, “that the Reich remains committed to African self-determination. But that self-determination does not include the right to massacre our men.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“And when the Americans protest, remind them: they opened this door.”
Bruno said nothing more. He didn’t need to.
Roosevelt had seemed to forgotten a very valuable lesson that his previous generation of politicians learned.
When provoked, even God would fear the ruthless pursuit of victory that the Butcher of Belgrade alone was capable of.
Monrovia would burn. Thousands would die, American agents among them.
And when the world recoiled in protest and terror, Bruno would remind them that this was caused by the United States, and its inability to mind its own business.