Frijheit (Liberty) [JT]

[☤Theodorijk Wijzemens]

Country: Allied Occupied France
Current Time: 1000 hours
Weather Conditions: Bright crisp morning in the early spring

It had been hours now, the man was standing alone in a suit he had bought the day before in Nuremberg. It was a black suit with light blue pinstripes with some grey mixed in. It had cost the man RM6000 and now he was waiting in the middle of Allied occupied territory. He had come through Belgium and gotten through to the French border that was still German controlled. from their he acted like a Frenchman until he reached the American occupation zone.

Theodorijk Wijzemens had been in Germany only days earlier, in Berlin three days ago. After a run in with a German SS officer he had known very well, he began his escape. Knowing every language of western Europe certainly helped. He breathed deeply and smoother his hand over the suit jacket. It was left over from the pre-war years. No one had bought it since then, but the man was independently wealthy; he could afford it.

He withdrew two items from his jacket pocket; one was his diary, bound in soft brown leather; the other was his forged feldbuch, detailing his history in the Luftwaffe. Both of these were very important and neither one of them would be seen by the Allies if he had anything to say about it. He was not happy at the moment. He put the books back in his inner pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper with the Hippocratic Oath written on it in his own hand in every language he knew: Dutch, English, German, French, Latin, Greek, Ancient Greek, and Ancient Mayan. the Ancient Mayan came from his travels in South America before his disillusionment.

Theo took another deep breath before he looked at his watch. It was almost 10.00. The time that he had specified to the Allied officer in the message he had sent through the Dutch Resistance. He knelt down and looked the man lying next to him over. He was Joe Claude, the prisoner he had witnessed Strumfelder abuse and then almost kill. He had bandages wrapped all around his face, stomach, and feet. Theo had taken the time on the plane to set his feet in plaster and sew up the incision on his face with the anaesthetic that should have been used in the first place.

A single tear went down Theo's face as he looked at the man. He had caused the damage. He had done so much to hurt this man, and yet...he was now shedding a tear for him. His heart was back, the past months seemed to have cut the flow of his arteries and vein in half. his blood must have run like oil the way he had behaved, the way he had thought.

He turned and spoke to the man in German, Joe's original language, "Josef, bin ich für mein Verbrechen gegen dich traurig. Es gibt nichts, das überhaupt reparieren könnte, was ich zugab, dir zu geschehen. Ich schwöre ernst, daß es nie wieder unter meinem Anblick geschieht. Jetzt gebe ich dich rüber deiner Partei, und ich hoffe, mit dir zu gehen, jedem Mann zu helfen, den ich das meiste Übel der Männer besiegen kann." He stopped speaking and looked under the bandages. He was healing up nicely.

The final move he made before the 10.00 meeting time was a check of his Reich ID card. His own face stared out at him but a new name was labelled under it: Theodorijk Wijzemens. He was a doctor for a Luftwaffe unit and had decided to come over to work for the allies because he was a Dutchman forced into German service. He would no longer be a traitor to his own people.

Only time could tell what would happen to him next.

Translations:
"Josef, bin ich für mein Verbrechen gegen dich traurig. Es gibt nichts, das überhaupt reparieren könnte, was ich zugab, dir zu geschehen. Ich schwöre ernst, daß es nie wieder unter meinem Anblick geschieht. Jetzt gebe ich dich rüber deiner Partei, und ich hoffe, mit dir zu gehen, jedem Mann zu helfen, den ich das meiste Übel der Männer besiegen kann."
~Josef, I am sorry for my crime against you. There is nothing that could ever repair what I allowed to happen to you. I solemnly swear that it will never happen again under my sight. Now, I am giving you over to your faction, and I hope to go with you, to help every man I can to defeat the most evil of men.

[MAJ Patterson]

Patterson and his Personal Security Detail (PSD) had awoke early that morning. The sun had yet to rise, the changing of the guard at the front gate had yet to commence, and he hurried them along so as to not arrive later than 0915. The scheduled meeting was not until 1000 but he had to set up for the arrival and make sure everyone knew how to proceed. This was a Black Op, the first of it's kind for the young unit. Had to meet up with a Dutchman for the retrieval of an American soldier. The shoe polish was smeared across their faces, everything shiny had been left behind, and most every free stitch available had been used to add a few twigs and leaves, mainly because they were all excited about their "special mission" but it helped camouflage them quite a bit as well.

The drive was long as the anticipation set in. Most of the men were wide eyed for the first half of the trip in the back of the cattle truck, almost never blinking, then after too much of that most of them fell asleep for a few minutes at a time until they hit a bump nice enough to wake them. Patterson checked the map coordinates and followed their route closely, he didn't want to mess up their chances for future missions of the sort. He put his flashlight away and lifted up the back flap to peer into the back of the truck, "Almost there men, final prep!" he yelled back at them over the engines roar. they shook themselves to awareness and checked each other over for the last couple of miles to the contact point.

While perched in the woods, a few men smoked as they all new that the meeting wasn't for a good while, and they needed to be calm for it, the last thing anyone wanted was a trigger happy idiot to ruin it all. Patterson had been the only one to speak directly to the man, but time was short and he hadn't had enough of it to relay the details of each conversation to the Desert Rats, even though it was their man as far as he knew from the description of the unit patch. Their base of operation was a good bit closer to the meeting as well so it just made more sense to him.

As the 1000 meeting time approached a man fitting the description Patterson had appeared in the short distance as the fog cleared, they had possibly been within thirty yards of each other for a while now, but visibility had been shot to hell in the early hours and the heavy rain the night before. Patterson reached over and grabbed Giles by the shoulder and whispered. "You know what to do, signal your men and move." Giles nodded halfway through and slowly pulled his arm up and twitched his fingers toward the pair of individuals, all eyes were on him as he exited the foliage in a low manner, the squad on his heels with Patterson watching every movement from the tree-line through his binoculars.

Seemed they were able to clear the distance unnoticed as the Dutchman was tending to the man lying next to him, by the time he stood Giles was within feet of him. A quick jerk and Giles had grabbed him around the face, covering his mouth and around his other arm, pulling him back into the Sergeant's own knee to take his balance, not a strike, just pressing into the small of his back so moving would be difficult. The rest of the squad set a small perimeter in the process around the group in case anyone was trying to pull anything fast, A couple scooped up the man and they all slowly trudged back to the tree-line. Patterson smiled as his men pulled off the maneuver seamlessly. Once they arrived back to his location he motioned for them to pull back further into the woods, in ten yards they stopped and Patterson spoke the code words, "I'm looking for the sunlight."

[☤Theodorijk Wijzemens]

Theodorijk could here the truck arriving and he knew the moment would come soon. He had learned much of allied BlackOps tactics when he was on the western front and had to be weary of the allies. Now, he knew what would happen; he mentally prepared himself for it. He made the final preparations of the man before him and pushed the small paper note into the hem of the man's trousers. He whispered into the man's ear, "Josef, there is a note in your trouser hem. Don't read it until you are alone. You need to trust me on this." Theo closed the hem with two strokes of a needle and thread and folded it up, snapping the thread away from the hem and dropping the needle to the ground only minuted before the hand went over his mouth.

It was an unpleasant feeling to say the least. He kept his hands to his head and away from the pistol in his pocket. He wouldn't tell them about the pistol unless he had to. Though he had prepared himself from the silent movement, he was still taken off guard until he was moved a few metres into the forest. A gruff voice soon came, I'm looking for the sunlight. Theo smiled as he was released and he stood up with his back to the others with his hands still on his head.

I have found the sunlight. It is called liberty. He stopped, turned around, hands still on head, and spoke again. I am Theodorijk Wijzemens, of the Dutch Resistance. He lowered his hands and held his right one out, offering it in friendship. His hand was sweaty, this was the moment of truth and his chance for freedom.

The wool jacket he was wearing that was so soft to begin with was now feeling rough to his wrists. He felt the place where his Ahnenerbe-SS ring once was, the indentation reminding him of the evil that he committed. He continued smiling, though it was n longer real happiness. All he wanted was a civilian life in France until he could go back to Holland.

He wanted to let the throaty sound of Dutch go through his throat as he said goede dag to the market lady who sold bundles of fruit to customers. He wanted to see the fields of flowers and windmills in the distance from the few towers in the flatlands of the sinking nation. He wanted to cross the canals of Amsterdam and skate on the frozen waters during winter. He wanted to travel without having to be called German or Nazi. He wanted to go home.

Time stopped as the sun peaked over the horizon flooding the forest with a dim light.

[MAJ Patterson]

Patterson looked on as his men set a new perimeter up just inside the tree line. They were still new at this kind of operation, but it seemed they were organized enough to pull it off well enough. Giles lowered his weapon and his men followed suit as they received the correct reply from the man. Patterson stepped forward and reached for the man's hand. "I'm Patterson, how about I just call you Theo for the sake of efficiency?" he held a firm grasp on the man's hand for a bit as Giles came around the pair and patted him down. "Sorry about all this, safety concerns really..." Giles removed a pistol from the man's pocket and unloaded it before stuffing it into his pack. "...it will be returned to you after the debriefing." Patterson reassured him as he released the man's hand and nodded over his shoulder for his men to move out.

With a slight rustling they exited the other end of the small forest and loaded up on the trucks, already having been turned around. Patterson helped Theo into the vehicle as his hands had been bound in the process. He hoped the man wasn't offended by all of this, but it just had to be done. Just a rag tag op, probably not following all the protocols but they were doing the best they could with the brief training on the matter that they had received. Patterson jumped in the cab and vehicles lurched forward. "Quick and clean huh sir?" came from the driver as they rounded the turn out of the dirt road. "We'll see when we get back to base Private, just keep driving." Patterson huffed out as he tried to get the safety harness around all his bulky gear.

The men in the back didn't really know what to do, should they speak with 'Theo'? Should they be asking him questions about what all this was about? They just continued to sit with him in silence, wondering what all this was about, but Giles knew that silence would just make the entire process move at a slower pace. "So where are you from Theo?" he asked as the back tarp of the vehicle was dropped and Giles pulled the canvas bag from over the man's head. Rude introduction to say the least, but it had to be done just like everything else.

[☤Theodorijk Wijzemens]

The whole operation seemed a little queer. They took away Theo's pistol only to bind his hands before getting him into the transport truck. Rather funny to say the least. Theo took a deep breath and calmed himself as he was set on the hard wooden bench of the vehicle with Josef at their feet on the stretcher. His white bandages looked as if they glowed in the low light. The vehicle had soon begun moving and rumbling as it went along the dirt road, south to the base.

Soon, one man broke the silence, not really knowing what should be done. Theo smiled, even though he was bound and obliged the man with an answer. "I was born in Amsterdam, but I grew up and lived during the summer in IJmuiden, near Amsterdam." He smiled genially. This was the man he wanted to be; the kind that reminisced about earlier times and better days rather than the war-torn Europe he had come to know. In his time, he had seen two wars ravage Europe. The first one, he had hardly understood since it was all south--in France. Now, the enemy, Germany, had conglomerated all the Germanic peoples claiming they were one. No, it was not like that.

He continued, knowing that the stories would help the men relax and find him more of a friend than a suspect. "It's a beautiful land as at that. From IJmuiden you can look across the atlantic and very nearly see England, or at least think you can." He smiled again. He sounded hopeful as he continued, "When you good people liberate my homeland, you will get to see it. It's one of the most breathtaking views one can find throughout Northern Europe." He sighed as he put his weight against the side of the truck that continued moving. Hopefully, the truck would arrive soon.

[MAJ Patterson]

Giles looked on as the Dutchman talked of home, kind of missed it himself a bit. "Sounds like a very nice place, I hope we are able to visit one day." Thinking a bit on what he had just said he decided to add in a bit more, "...and I pray that it is spared from the horrible happenings that tend to come with soldiers presence as well." Giles swallowed hard hoping he hadn't just stuck his over-sized boot in his mouth. Leaning over he checked the bandaged up Corporal's pulse, making sure he was remaining stable, but he didn't know much of the medical field. "He gonna be ok?" Giles asked as he nudged his head towards the American youngster.

***

Patterson nodded as the guard at the main gate waved them on through. "Pull into the back of the prison block and let's get this whole ordeal over with." he ordered to the driver as he pulled his pack in close and shuffled through it making sure all the paperwork was still in tact. After a settling glance at it, he slid them back down wishing he owned a tactical briefcase, the thought brought a quick smirk but it was washed away by the sound of distant artillery fire which reminded him of the large convoy that would be heading out in a few days to intercept what intel deemed "A Biggun", speaking of a German troop movement that was sure to spell trouble for their MSR.

Patterson gathered his thoughts as they pulled into the back of the large stone structure and came to a halt. They piled out and headed for the large steel doors, a few men helping the once again hooded guest and a couple others carrying the Corporal on a stretcher to the ambulance that was waiting as planned. He stopped the men with the Dutchman, "my apologies for the harsh manners sir, but the military is picky about procedures." and with a small pat on the closest soldiers shoulder they went inside to the nearest conference room for a debrief as the large doors slammed in their wake.

[Daniel Brennan]

Mod Post

CP:
Patterson: 8CP

Doc: 8CP


~Dan