Warsaw was dying slowly, strangled under the weight of iron and fire. But in the silence between the artillery barrages, whispers carried defiant voices speaking to London, to Paris, to anyone who would listen. Whispers the Reich demanded silenced.
Müller's orders had been simple, stripped of all disguise: Root out the families sheltering the resistance. Make an example. Christian had obeyed without hesitation. Jansen had not.
They went at dusk, when the last light of the sun bled through the smoke-stained sky. Their target was not a garrison, nor a broadcast den this time, but an entire tenement where Polish fighters were rumored to hide between raids.
Jansen stopped when they reached the building.
The windows were dark, the front door marked with chalk, a resistance symbol, a skull with a cross. Children's voices drifted from inside. "Christian," Jansen whispered. "This isn't a barracks. This is a home."
Christian ignored Jansen and checked the pistol at his side. The men under Christian's command kicked the door in. Screams erupted as families were dragged into the open, lined against the walls beneath the broken crucifix. A man tried to shield his wife. A child clutched at her mother's skirts.
"Where are they?" Christian demanded in Polish, his accent sharp but understandable. "Where are the fighters you hide?" The man spat blood in his face.
Christian shot him without hesitation. The child wailed.
Jansen flinched. "Christ… they're civilians." "They are hosts for the disease," Christian said coldly. He ordered the others to search. Rooms were torn apart, mattresses ripped, floorboards smashed open. They found rifles hidden in crates of flour. Grenades buried beneath sacks of potatoes.
Proof enough.
Christian turned back to the survivors. "The Reich has no use for traitors."
He raised his pistol. "Enough!" Jansen shouted, stepping between Christian and the family. His voice cracked, but his body shook with fury. "They're unarmed! The fighters are gone and you know it!"
Christian's expression did not waver. "Müller said examples. The city must learn fear." "This isn't war," Jansen said, trembling now. "This is slaughter."
Christian's eyes narrowed. "Do you doubt the Reich again?" The silence stretched like wire between them. The other men shifted uneasily, watching, waiting.
Jansen's face twisted. He lowered his rifle. His silence was his answer.
Christian fired anyway.
The mother dropped, her scream cut short. The boy tried to run but Christian caught him by the collar and pulled him back like an animal, pressing the pistol to his head. The boy's wide, wet eyes stared up at him, uncomprehending. Christian pulled the trigger. Jansen's legs nearly gave way. He stumbled to the wall, clutching at the stone as though to steady himself.
"You're mad," he whispered. "All of you. This… this will destroy us." "No," Christian said softly, sliding the gun back into his holster. "This will build us. These people are ignorant and it is our duty to usher them into a new world." Jansen looked at Christian with shock. Christian looked back at him. "You've been a child before Jansen. Remember when you got hurt and your mother had to clean your wounds with alcohol? It was painful wasn't it? But she had to do it for if she had not, your wounds would have festered and maybe the doctor would have to amputate your leg."
"What are you saying?" Jansen asked weakly. "They are a wound, left unchecked, it will fester and we'd have to do much worse things than this in order to fulfill our duty." A tear dropped from Jansen's eye. "We do this for our country and most importantly, we do this to protect those we love."
The building was torched. Flames crawled up the walls, lighting the sky with a sickening glow. The screams faded into crackling.
Christian stood still as stone, watching the inferno consume the tenement. His face was unreadable.
But Jansen stared into the fire as though his soul were inside it, burning with the families they had left behind.
Something broke in him that night. The doubt that had been a whisper became a scream. His eyes no longer saw comrades in their own ranks, only executioners in uniform.
Christian saw it. And Müller would see it soon enough.
That night, in the barracks, Jansen didn't speak. He just sat, staring at his hands as though they were drenched in blood that would never wash away.
Christian sharpened his knife in the corner, the rasp of steel on stone loud in the silence. He knew what was coming. Jansen had crossed a line, and there was no return.