𝙴𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚗𝚎 - 𝙰𝚗𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚍

Chapter 5

Outside the café, a German motorbike with a sidecar pulled up. The lookout, who had been stationed outside earlier, discarded his toothpick and strode purposefully into the café. With a sense of urgency, he approached the bar.

The sharp ring of the waiter's bell pierced the air three times, causing Uncle Hajsky and Ladislav to instinctively react.

"We have to end our meeting. Use the window," Ladislav says as the group cleared everything off the table.

Jan and Josef gripped their guns tightly while Izabela cracked open the back door, granting her a discreet vantage point into the bustling café. Her gaze fell upon two German soldiers positioned at the bar. One of them is looking at the photos of old Prague on the wall; this interest is leading him closer to the back room.

Sensing the threat, Izabela instinctively withdrew her own firearm from the confines of her coat and aimed it at the door. Her focus, laser-sharp as she braced herself for what lay ahead.

Behind her, Uncle Hajsky unlatched the window to a side alley, discreetly signaling to Curda that escape was necessary. However, a misstep caused Curda to topple a couple of chairs over, their clattering disruption capturing the attention of the soldier and drawing him nearer to the concealed room.

Izabela's heart raced as the soldier's hand reached out for the doorknob. Time seemed to slow, tension coiling in the air like a taut wire. Yet the shattering sound of a coffee cup meeting the floor stole the soldier's focus. Startled, his attention veered away from the door. His footsteps guided him elsewhere, blissfully unaware of the concealed danger just beyond his reach.

Relief washed over her like a gentle wave, her tensed muscles finally releasing their grip. With a quiet sigh, she directed her gaze back to the men in the room, her voice hushed yet resolute.

"Clear," she whispered.

-

The entrance to Heydrich's chateau at Panenské Brezany stood before them, guarded by multiple armed German soldiers. Concealed within the sheltering embrace of a small forest, Josef, Jan, and Izabela lay prone on the ground.

Josef and Izabela remained a little further back within the forest, while Jan positioned himself closer to the forest's edge.

Jan's steady gaze was fixed through the lens of his binoculars, surveying the scene before them. "Looks like there is a whole garrison there," he informed, his voice hushed yet resolute.

A sleek car emerged from the chateau's entrance, drawing the trio's attention. Seated inside was Heydrich himself, and behind the wheel sat Oberscharführer Johannes Klein.

"That's our man," Josef declared.

Swiftly, he retrieved a scrap of paper and pen from his pocket, jotting down the significant details. "Five minutes after 9:00 a.m." he recorded.

"Is he riding solo today?" Izabela asked Jan.

As Jan peered through the binoculars once more, "armed escort, thirty seconds behind," he said.

A silence enveloped the trio, their minds racing to devise a plan that could exploit this narrow window of opportunity. Josef, breaking the stillness, proposed an idea.

"If we can use a rope or a steel cable to stop the Mercedes, then thirty seconds would be all we need," he suggested, rising from the forest floor, brushing off the dirt, and reaching for his bike.

Izabela and Jan followed suit.

Jan, though, expressed his concerns with a voice of frustration. "Even if a rope can stop the car, we still need more than thirty seconds to escape from here, and we'd have to face the armed guard here in the open. It would not be my first choice," he voiced.