Man with the Iron Heart Read online

  “Intensely paced, Man with the Iron Heart is an adrenaline rush of battle and action thickly spiced with science, philosophy, religion and superstition. A superb cast of larger-than-life characters take the age-old duty of slaying Nazis to new and complex heights in an alternate history that fits all too well into what we think we know. It’s Hellboy meets Inglourious Basterds with a bit of Ragnarok thrown in, and it’s relentless. Furious fun.”

  –Alan Baxter, bestselling author of the Alex Caine series

  “Nastos continues to show why he is the next great voice in sci-fi.”

  –Rob Liefeld, creator of Deadpool, Cable, Youngblood and X-force, and founder of Image Comics

  “Mat Nastos is one of the most exciting writers working in the field of adventure fiction today. Every page is an adrenaline rush and by the end of the story, you're left breathlessly anticipating the next. If you're not reading Nastos, you're truly missing out.”

  –Barry Reese, award-winning author of The Rook, Lazarus Gray and Gravedigger

  “It was the best 80s action movie I've read in a long time.”

  –Derrick Ferguson, new-pulp author of Four Bullets for Dillon and The Adventures of Fortune McCall

  “It's rare when a book takes both the front line experience as well as the supernatural elements so readily associated with World War II and the Nazi party and turns them into something seamless and intriguing. Man with the Iron Heart does that exceedingly well and the characters live, scream, fight, and die right off the page, not content with just leaping.”

  –Tommy Hancock, award-winning author and publisher at Pro Se Press

  “Man With the Iron Heart's tight and snappy prose takes grounded supernatural mysticism, a charming cast of very human characters, and then hurls it all into an adventure that revels in the unapologetic grandiosity of classic action movies!”

  –David A. Rodriguez, writer of Finding Gossamyr and lead writer for Skylanders: SWAP Force

  ALSO FROM COHESION PRESS

  Horror:

  SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

  – Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding (eds.)

  SNAFU: Heroes

  – Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding (eds.)

  SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

  – Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding (eds.)

  SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

  – Geoff Brown & Amanda J Spedding (eds.)

  SNAFU: Hunters

  – Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown (eds.)

  SNAFU: Future Warfare

  – Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown (eds.)

  SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

  – Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown (eds.)

  SNAFU: Black Ops

  – Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown (eds.)

  Blurring the Line – Marty Young (ed.)

  American Nocturne – Hank Schwaeble

  Jade Gods – Patrick Freivald

  The Angel of the Abyss – Hank Schwaeble

  Sci-Fi/Thriller:

  Valkeryn: The Dark Lands – Greig Beck

  Cry Havoc – Jack Hanson

  Forlorn Hope – Jack Hanson

  Creature Thrillers

  Into the Mist – Lee Murray

  Fathomless – Greig Beck

  Primordial – David Wood | Alan Baxter

  Coming Soon

  Congregations of the Dead – James A. Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

  Snaked – Duncan McGeary

  A Hell Within – James A. Moore & Charles R. Rutledge

  SNAFU: Judgement Day

  – Amanda J Spedding & Geoff Brown (eds.)

  Lysan Plague – Alister Hodge

  Cohesion Press

  Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum

  Beechworth, Australia

  Man with the Iron Heart

  © 2017 Mat Nastos

  ISBNs:

  Print: 978-1-925623-06-2

  ePub: 978-1-925623-05-5

  Kindle: 978-1-925623-03-1

  Cohesion Press

  Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum

  Beechworth, Australia

  Dedication:

  To Ed Greenwood, a man who allowed me to experience wonder and adventure through the magic of his words.

  CHAPTER 1

  OPERATION: ANTHROPOID

  May 27, 1942. 10:30 AM

  Head nearly engulfed in smoke and standing with his back to the roughly-paved Dresden-Prague road, Glasgow-born Ian MacAndrew puffed furiously away on his cherrywood pipe, desperately trying to finish one last pinch of tobacco. If he was going to get himself killed a thousand miles from home in Czechoslovakia or Bohemia or whatever it was the blasted Germans were calling it these days, there was no way in hell he was going to waste the only civilized blend to be found on the war-torn continent.

  They could take his life but, God and Queen be damned, they’d never take his tobacco.

  The Scotsman shivered a bit in his ridiculously over-sized wool coat despite the morning already topping twenty-seven degrees Celsius. He’d finally admitted the truth of what Brigadier Gubbins and the boys back at the Special Operations Executive had told him when he volunteered to fly out from Sussex three days earlier: this was a suicide mission.

  Until that moment, the Captain in the Scots Guard had been deluding himself into thinking it would be a walk in the park. All he had to do was jump out of an airplane into the heart of the Hun Empire, meet up with a rag-tag group of Czech rebels, and assassinate one of the most powerful men in all of Nazi Germany: SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotecktor of Bohemia and Moravia. A man known more often as the ‘Butcher of Prague’.

  A grunt, masquerading itself as the Scotsman’s version of a chuckle, slid from MacAndrew. The bristles of his thick, red mustache bounced under the shade of the dark hunting cap he wore pulled down low over his eyes. The man had done his best with the hopeless task of disguising his large frame. After all, a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-twenty pound lad from Scotland with flame-red hair would stand out almost anywhere, especially lounging on the side of a village road just outside Nazi-occupied Prague.

  “Captain?” came a soft, worried German voice from behind and below MacAndrew’s left shoulder, snapping the soldier back from his musings. “Is everything all right, sir?”

  MacAndrew trailed twin coils of smoke like some ancient dragon of legend as he took a good look at the young man who had spoken.

  In his late-twenties, Jozef Gabcik was a slight man, standing just over five-feet-eight inches and one-hundred-and-fifty pounds. Expressive, cheerful eyes, undaunted by thoughts of dying, shone out pale blue from under his own wool cap, which kept shifting into what MacAndrew could only describe as a jaunty angle. Even before Gabcik had escaped the German invasion of his homeland a year before and found his way to the highlands of Scotland for training, the young man had been a fine soldier, awarded the French Croix de Guerre in 1940.

  Talented and good-natured even in the worst of circumstances, Gabcik had done well under MacAndrew’s harsh training for what was sure to be his last mission.

  Pride welled up in the Scotsman; pride at serving with Gabcik and the other men he’d trained for Operation Anthropoid. They were the reason he’d volunteered to come to this stretch of road, halfway between Prague and Brezary, and give up his life to kill one of the most evil men on the planet. Gabick, his best friend Jan Kubis, and Lieutenant Adolf Opalka, had trusted in their training to get them through the mission – had trusted in Captain Ian MacAndrew’s training – and he wasn’t going to stand by and let them do it
on their own.

  Grinning widely, MacAndrew clapped Gabcik roughly on the back with a big hand and laughed, “Jozef, my lad, it’s a brilliant day. I’ve got my boys, I’ve got my pipe, and I’ve got the urge to kill a Nazi. What could be better, eh?”

  Jan Kubis checked his wristwatch for what must have been the hundredth time and looked up at the rest of the group, eyes narrowing. “It’s almost time.”

  “Aye, it is. Everyone get into position,” MacAndrew whispered, acknowledging the intense Kubis with a nod. The man, not much bigger than Gabcik, was wound tighter than a steel spring. Earlier in the morning, MacAndrew had ordered Kubis to sling his British-made Sten Mk II machine gun over his shoulder for fear the twenty-eight-year-old Moravian man would accidentally fire it in his nervousness.

  The Colt .38 revolver clenched tightly in Kubis’ fist, half-hidden in the sleeve of his raincoat, was much less likely to go off before it was supposed to. MacAndrew just hoped the man remembered he had a bag full of grenades hanging across his torso. If they lived through this, MacAndrew would make sure to carry any jury-rigged explosive devices himself.

  A hiss from the tall, good-looking Lieutenant Opalka snapped everyone to attention. The immaculately-groomed member of the Czechoslovakian underground had been a late addition to their little group. He’d been successful in a number of other sabotage missions and the higher-ups back at Baker Street had been convinced he’d be handy to have.

  Opalka kept lookout for a signal from Josef Valcik, stationed about one hundred yards down the road, hidden in a thick hedge just off of the hairpin turn that would cause Heydrich’s driver to slow his car enough for their ambush. The sixth member of their team, Karel Curda, a dirty little man with a rat’s face, stood sentry across the road, seated in a poor imitation of relaxation at a stone bench.

  Valcik was to warn the merry band of Rela Fafik’s approach with a flashing mirror. Rela was Gabcik’s girlfriend, set to precede Heydrich’s car and let them know if he was alone or accompanied by an escort of soldiers on motorcycles.

  “Rela comes… I see her hat,” said Opalka, letting them all know Heydrich’s car was alone.

  Hearing the sound of Rela’s old auto echoing off the trees around them, MacAndrew sighed as he tapped the last few pieces of burning St Bruno’s from his pipe before stashing it in the front pocket of his old vest. “Get ready, lads. It’s time,” was all he said, reaching into his coat to check the slide of his Owen machine gun.

  The charcoal-gray coach bounced past and the group caught sight of the beautiful, raven-haired Rela. Gabcik flashed the girl a quick half-smile as he anxiously stroked the side-mounted thirty-two-round magazine of his Sten gun, inexpertly hidden under the knee-length wool coat draped over his shoulders.

  MacAndrew knew the young Czech wanted to shout out to the woman he loved, after all, this might be the last time they’d get to see one another, and was relieved by the man’s restraint. The thunderous roar of Heydrich’s open-topped Mercedes-Benz 320 B roadster announced their prey was close.

  The car was a monster and the Reichsprotecktor’s confidence in his own power kept the car’s convertible top opened and exposed to the world. That overconfidence would spell his downfall. In a few seconds it would all be over. One way or the other. Two flashes of light from Valcik’s mirror silently spoke volumes to the rebels: Heydrich’s driver, Johannes Klein, was making the turn, and the pulsating bleat of the car slowed to a murmur as it reduced in speed.

  The sound, rumbling closer and closer, no doubt fortified the resolve of every man present as they moved into their predetermined positions.

  MacAndrew, the most easily noticeable of the bunch, faded back into the thick hedge row lining the road for tens of miles in every direction, sliding the Owen gun from beneath his coat. Lieutenant Opalka trotted across the road to join Curda on the bench, faking a conversation with the little man. In the distance, MacAndrew saw Valcik mimic his own disappearing act.

  Only Kubis and Gabcik remained where they stood. To them went the most important part of the mission: confronting and killing Reinhard Heydrich. Nearly a year of planning and training came down to their ability to conquer fear and every ounce of self-preservation in their bodies to face a man directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of their countrymen.

  If all went according to plan, the Reichsprotecktor would be dead in less than a minute, and no one would be savvy to the men responsible.

  Ian MacAndrew should have known better.

  As the sleek black roadster pulled around the corner and the two Czech soldiers angled for the vehicle, ready to open fire, the Scotsman heard the sound of a second, larger engine in the distance and was nearly blinded by a frantic series of flashes from the hidden Valcik’s signal mirror.

  Nothing ever went according to plan.

  * * *

  Reinhard Heydrich laughed heartily at the words of his driver, SS-Oberscharfuhrer Johannes Klein. The young man had only recently joined Heydrich’s staff, but the de facto dictator of Czechoslovakia had already taken a tremendous liking to Klein and appointed him to the position of personal aide and driver.

  Klein’s stories of conquests with the local daughters of Prague were fast becoming legendary and, in Heydrich’s mind, those tales of nightly debauchery would be the only things that kept their long drive from his villa in Paneske-Breschen to Hradcany Castle bearable. The Reichsprotektor couldn’t imagine how truly ghastly the trip through the dreary Bohemian countryside would have been without the delightfully wicked boastings.

  Long fingers ran through thin blond hair for the thousandth time since the pair had left Heydrich’s home an hour earlier. The warm, moist wind of the humid morning had already blown his gray military hat from his head a number of times, and it now lay upside down on the seat beside him.

  Since their destination was still another hour away, Heydrich stretched out and called up to his driver . “Klein, please hurry. I wish to be inside before midday. The heat is dreadful. I’m sweating like a damned Greek back here.”

  “Is that wise, Herr Heydrich?” asked Klein, half turning from his perch behind the steering wheel. “We’re already a hundred meters or more ahead of the escort and they don’t seem to be catching up. Shouldn’t we wait for the men?”

  “My dear, Klein,” yawned Heydrich in half-feigned ennui. “We are lions amongst lambs here, with nothing to fear but boredom itself.”

  “Yes, Reichsprotektor,” came Klein’s response as he faced forward, the roadster picking up speed.

  Heydrich snatched his hat from the seat next to him, repositioning it on his head and prodded his aide once more, “Tell me again, Klein, of the barmaid from Minsk… but just the interesting parts this time, yes?”

  Before the young man could begin the tale, a strange flashing light reflected off of the highly-polished windshield frame of the Mercedes. It caught Heydrich’s attention just as a peasant stepped away from a tram stop and directly into the vehicle’s path.

  “Sir?” quizzed Klein’s voice.

  Heydrich’s order to run the man down died on his lips as the thin man with murder in his bright blue eyes jerked a machine gun from beneath a tattered raincoat and took deadly aim.

  * * *

  In the blink of an eye, time slammed into slow motion for Captain Ian MacAndrew, causing the half-second between each of Valcik’s frantic mirror flashes to elongate into what seemed like long, painful minutes to the old soldier.

  With agonizing clarity he saw Gabcik stride confidently into the path of the oncoming Nazi command vehicle, slowly raise the black steel barrel of his Sten machine gun and squeeze the trigger lovingly as the driver stomped down on the car’s brakes, tossing up gravel and dust in a vicious spray behind them.

  Blood drummed through MacAndrew’s veins and his heart leaped in his chest as a huge Horch 108 military transport, loaded with a squad of ten heavily-
armed Wehrmach soldiers, eased its way around the hairpin turn not far from Valcik. The SS troops were still far enough away that the rebels could all make it out alive if Gabcik made a clean kill.

  “Shoot him!” yelled MacAndrew with a voice stretched out in an indecipherable bellow, eyes tracking back to the small man who carried all hope of success on his bony shoulders. The sound of the gun’s slide jamming caused time to explode back to full speed around the now-screaming Scotsman.

  Staring face to face, eye to wide open eye with Heydrich’s driver, Gabcik struggled to unlock the slide of his machine gun, but the weapon refused to budge. The young Czech had to see the Nazi officer unholster a luger with his right hand as he stood out of the convertible’s open-air top.

  “Hovno,” was all MacAndrew head him mutter before the driver opened up with the small handgun. Gabcik was knocked to the ground, a hand grasping his shoulder; he’d been hit by at least one nine-millimeter slug from the Nazi’s counterattack.

  In the seconds the exchange had taken, MacAndrew burst from his concealment in the thick hedge wall, covered the ten or so yards to where the Czech soldier had fallen, dropped to one knee and began firing at the still-idling Mercedes-Benz with his Australian-made machine gun. His barrage of hot lead shattered the car’s windshield, peppering Klein with glass, and forcing the German to duck behind the dashboard for cover.

  “Everyone – fire!” commanded MacAndrew, ejecting a spent clip from the now-steaming Owen gun and snapping in a replacement. The Scotsman continued his withering attack on the vehicle and was joined by the sound of Lieutenant Opalka’s Sten gun from across the street.

  The Nazi’s automobile was being shredded by the relentless stream of bullets from two sides, its hood blown open with a geyser of steam from a pierced radiator, and doors resembling a fine Swiss cheese. A burst of return fire from somewhere within the Mercedes by one of the trapped Nazis was the only indication something still lived within the heap.