Chapter 1099: The Empire

Right now, Linus really wanted to stand up, walk over to Heydrich, and slap him hard across the face. How old am I? What last words do I need to leave? Can’t you speak properly? Have you ever considered the feelings of the person hearing this?

But he didn’t dare. Not far in front of him lay the bodyguards he had spent a fortune to hire. Their combat effectiveness was far greater than his own, yet now they were all lying scattered on the ground, their bullet wounds still seeping blood.

His best friend, the old Count, had just died beside him, the holes in his body still steaming. A few drops of blood had even splashed onto him, onto his face. He screamed, trying to scramble up from the sofa, away from the Count’s body, but his movement caused the Count’s hand to fall onto his leg.

“Ah! Ah! Who dares to kill me? Ah! Ah! Blood! Blood!” Linus shrieked, as if trying to vent the infinite terror in his heart. He struggled, but he couldn’t get up. His feet thrashed wildly on the floor, trying to find a purchase.

Don’t be too confident in your own courage. A normal person, suddenly seeing a gun or blood, will be scared out of their mind. What’s more, this room was now full of corpses, and Linus had just watched these living people get turned into sieves, one after another. So if you said he was a madman now, people would believe you, because the guy had really come close to soiling himself.

Heydrich stood with his hands behind his back, a look of disdain on his face as he watched the crying, screaming man. He couldn’t quite believe that this man, who was less resilient than any random private on the battlefield, had once been a super-tycoon whose wealth was comparable to a nation’s. He waved his hand impatiently, signaling his men to quickly take care of this trouble.

As the darkest corner behind Akado, Reinhard Heydrich had seen all kinds of desperate people, as many as fish in a river. He had sent countless members of noble families to concentration camps, and he had also killed women, children, and the elderly. So this hysterical Linus before him could not stir in him a single trace of pity or disgust.

Three or four SS soldiers, holding their submachine guns, stepped forward, aiming their dark muzzles at the terrified Linus on the sofa. This wasn’t the first time these soldiers had exterminated a family, so everything before them was no more special than eating breakfast in the morning.

“For the Führer!” Heydrich’s hands, clasped behind his back, pressed against the seam of his trousers. He raised his right arm high in a standard German salute.

“Help me!” At the last moment, Linus seemed to finally realize his danger. He shouted this, and then the fingers of the submachine gunners opposite him squeezed their triggers. Shell casings, one after another, were ejected from the guns, rolling and bouncing on the carpet. The muzzle flashes enveloped Linus’s body, making him seem to be bathed in a halo of light.

Linus’s body trembled slightly from the impact of the bullets. In just one short second, the legs that had been struggling and kicking were now straight and still. This most famous of German tycoons and capitalists, who had always been thinking of how to oppose Akado, had left nothing in this world but a corpse full of holes, and then had completely vanished.

A few SS soldiers moved their muzzles away from Linus. Two officers from behind Heydrich came forward with a camera and began to take photos of Linus’s and the others’ bodies for the archives.

On a small hill outside the castle, a convoy of luxury cars was parked. A full twenty Mercedes-Benz cars made the one specially-customized Führer’s car in the middle even more conspicuous. Inside this car, Akado sat in the back seat. He looked through the window in the direction of the old castle. The sound of dense gunfire came. He blinked once, then withdrew his gaze.

“I didn’t let you go, not because I didn’t trust you,” Akado suddenly spoke, his voice low, to Gascoigne, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. “It’s just that the less the Army is involved in this kind of thing, the better. Understand?”

“Understood! My Führer!” Hearing Akado’s explanation, Gascoigne, who had been somewhat apprehensive, relaxed. As the head of Army Intelligence, he quickly replied.

“If I wasn’t considerate of the feelings of you two, I would have been in my office at a time like this,” Akado complained, and then he closed his eyes. “Let’s go. You can accompany me back to the Führer’s residence, and then you can go back to Army Intelligence.”

“Yes! My Führer!” Gascoigne said respectfully. The cars then started up, and one after another, they drove in file out of the castle’s courtyard gate. Heydrich, who had just walked out of the castle, was putting on his gloves as he descended the stone steps of the main entrance. He saw the Führer’s convoy leaving in the distance, stopped, and remained on the last step.

Seeing their boss stop, everyone else respectfully stopped as well. They watched the Führer’s convoy leave, and only then did they withdraw their gazes. Heydrich turned his head and, with a frown, looked at the officer on his left. “Look at this mess you’ve made! You’ve even alarmed the Führer. You’ve completely disgraced me.”

After speaking, he didn’t even bother with his subordinate, who had practically buried his head in his own crotch. He continued to walk down the steps, towards his own car. And behind him followed swarms of SS soldiers. They were to board the dozen or so trucks behind Heydrich’s car and to leave with their commander.

In fact, Army Intelligence and the SS had found Linus at almost the same time. As a result, the two departments, in a spirit of competition, had each drawn up their own operational plans. The result was that before the operations had even begun, the Führer had found out. And so the heads of the two departments had been called together and had received a tongue-lashing from Akado.

In all aspects of Germany, Akado had allowed such a relationship of competition to exist, but he also valued cooperation. So, for this kind of behavior, of mutually concealing information, not reporting, and acting independently, once he discovered it, he would absolutely not tolerate it. And so, under Akado’s arrangement, today’s operation had been carried out by the SS, which was accustomed to doing the dirty work. And the Army Intelligence, on the other hand, had accompanied him to observe the execution of the entire plan.

Returning to the Führer’s residence, he did not keep Gascoigne to explain anything. Akado, accompanied by Anna, walked to the back garden of the Führer’s residence. That was his home, the place he could truly call home. He pushed open the door and tiptoed into the house. Akado handed his clothes to a servant, then put on a dazed, silly smile, and went to the bedroom to see his son, Caesar.

In this room, he seemed to have forgotten that he was a decisive Führer, had forgotten that he was in the middle of a war that concerned the lives of millions. At this moment, he was just a somewhat clumsy father, looking with loving eyes at the baby who was sleeping soundly in his cradle.

Mercedes was leaning against the wall by the bedroom door, her silk pajamas accentuating her graceful figure. As a European new mother, she had recovered perfectly. Her hourglass curves gave no hint that she was already a mother.

“The little fellow is so strong! I was just looking, it seems he’s already cutting teeth,” Akado said, exiting the bedroom. With an excited expression, he boasted of his great discovery to his wife.

“Caesar is almost a year old. Of course he’s cutting teeth.” Mercedes, her arms crossed, tried hard to look angry, which only made her charming face even more beautiful. “Let’s talk about something else. At least in terms of being a father, you are not qualified, Akado.”

Akado nodded with resignation. He carefully closed the baby’s door and then continued, “I know! I’m not a good father. And I’m the one who sends other people’s fathers and sons to the battlefield, to let them die there.”

“Alright, as soon as I say this, you get all sentimental and try to win my sympathy,” Mercedes said, giving Akado a feigned look of annoyance. It was more alluring than anything, and it made one’s mind wander. Anna was downstairs; she hadn’t come up. So at least this second floor was the exclusive space of Mercedes, the mistress of the house.

Looking at the little fellow who was sleeping soundly with his eyes closed, Akado’s heart couldn’t help but soften. He leaned against the wall beside Mercedes, standing shoulder to shoulder with her, and then he said, “I know the calls for me to ascend the throne are getting louder and louder. But you also know why I’ve been so reluctant to give up this position of Führer, to ascend to the throne of an emperor.”

“I know, but they don’t,” Mercedes said, looking at her husband. She looked at the occasional white hair on his head, and with a somewhat low emotion, she said, “These people are always thinking of sidelining you, and then to sit in that position of absolute power themselves…”

“No one will have absolute power, my dear,” Akado said with a cold laugh. He then turned his head to look at his son’s door. “Who do you think can replace me as the Imperial Führer? Krupp? Brauchitsch? Or Dominis? These people either lack the ability to command, or they don’t have the seniority. If I were to give up this position, they would ruin this empire in just a few minutes.”

Mercedes rested her head on Akado’s shoulder and said with a sigh, “I understand, my dear. I understand it all.”

“For our son, I can only give Caesar a throne without power. That is the only way he can grow up safely,” Akado said, his voice full of tenderness as he mentioned Caesar. “So I can only continue to toil now, to forge this jiangshan (empire) into an iron-clad fortress for him.”

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