Bruno had a brief visit home to see his family before taking the train to Geneva. And when he arrived in the city, the first thing he noticed was that it was not as prosperous as it had been before.
Throughout Bruno’s entire life, he had used the Swiss Confederation as the preferred location to sign treaties on neutral ground with other European powers with which he found himself waging war.
There was once an exception to this rule... the Treaty of Versailles of 1916. Bruno had chosen the Palace of Versailles to end the Great War in this life for a myriad of reasons.
But the primary one being to rewrite history in the same place where it had once been irreversibly blemished... in another life, and another world.
Other than that Zurich or Geneva tended to be the location of his choosing. Switzerland had a long history as a neutral nation, and a host of international accords because of it.
But those days were clearly coming to an end. And one could not be more certain than by simply gazing upon the state of disrepair that the once proud nation had found itself in.
Over the course of decades, Bruno had weaponized not just the military, but anything he could to complete his objectives. And with Switzerland he had deployed a new tactic in the art of subversion: economics.
The people of Switzerland had become destitute, the Swiss franc had been debased while the nation’s coffers were empty. And they owed millions of marks to the German Reich just to keep the nation afloat.
The nation found itself incapable of even performing the most basic of maintenance to the streets themselves. Cracks, potholes, rusting bridges that were closed due to unsafe conditions.
If there was one exception to this ever-decaying infrastructure, it was the railways that were sold to the German Reich and maintained by them after Switzerland defaulted on one of its interest payments.
The rails themselves were policed by German Eisenbahntruppen, or railway troops, meaning that even those would-be troublemakers could cause no harm to German assets within Swiss borders.
When Bruno stepped off the train, he was escorted by heavily armed men in a unique urban camouflage pattern BDU-cut uniform. As well as black body armor and helmets. On their right biceps sat the flag of the Werwolf Group, a banner infamous across many battlefields the world over.
The banner was a black flag, with three vertically stacked horizontal white wolfsangels. Wherever it flew across the world, blood and iron were sure to be found lying in its wake.
Beneath the banner of the Werwolf was the unit symbol. It was a black shield, with a white border, and within its center lay an Imperial era Totenkopf with a field cap atop its head, and two crossed daggers instead of bones.
This was the symbol of the infamous Werwolf Sturmkommandos. Specifically the first company, which specialized in VIP asset protection. And acted as Bruno’s personal guard in hostile areas around the globe.
The men were armed with special short-barreled carbine variants of the new Sturmgewehr 42, rifles that came standard with skeletonized side-folding stocks and suppressors.
They quickly ushered Bruno into the covertly armored SUV, which was one of many within the motorcade. Ensuring that the area was not at all compromised before the cars began to take off.
The man in charge of the security detail, like the rest of his unit had his face hidden behind a black balaclava, with a white skull print where his features should otherwise be.
With his eyes hidden behind a pair of ballistic goggles that had blood red opaque anti-laser dazzle lenses. Bruno felt as if he were staring into the face of death itself for just a moment.
But he didn’t quake in its wake; instead he smiled before pulling out the paper sitting in his lap.
It was an intelligence dossier, one gathered from the Cerberus units hidden within the city limits.
"What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this cab. Do you understand me?"
The men nodded their heads; not even their breath could be heard in the wake of their silence. Allowing Bruno to continue without incident.
"The remnants of De Gaulle’s most ardent followers, or at least those who are not stuck in Quebec, have been hiding here in Switzerland. Over the last four years, they have made some headway with the local Swiss-French population, recruiting others to their cause. And today they intend to attack the delegation as it arrives at the palace, before a peace can be brokered...."
The masked men didn’t make a sound, nor shift a single millimeter in their seats. But what else could Bruno expect from a group of men who were selected for their position as Sturmkommandos not just because of their qualifications as soldiers, but also because of their disturbed psychology.
You see, Bruno had a policy in the German Armed forces, to select the worst offenders against the laws of war and quietly "end" them.
Officially, these men would be executed for their crimes. But unofficially, they would be interrogated, psychologically analyzed, and if proven useful as merciless killers without a shred of empathy or remorse, repurposed in the Werwolf Group under new identities.
From there, it was a Darwinist, cannibalizing culture, where only the strongest survived and reached the top. And the men surrounding Bruno had long since lost any shred of humanity that they may have been born with.
All that remained was their utility to the state as weapons of war, unregistered, and undocumented. It was because of this, the prospect of their Chancellor being just about to walk into an ambush did not faze them in the slightest.
He was not their charge to protect; Bruno was, and Bruno was far more important than the Chancellor.
Bruno found himself most comfortable among men like the Sturmkommandos, perhaps because they reminded him of Erich.
Or perhaps because he knew he could speak freely among them, and they would never utter another word to anyone else.
Hence why his shoulders relaxed against the fine leather seat of the SUV’s interior as the vehicle rolled through the city streets.
"And it is because of this that I fear we may be delayed ever so slightly... It’s such a shame that we will be missing all the fun, isn’t it?"
The men once more said nothing; they simply nodded their heads in agreement with the sentiment expressed by their superior. All the while the motorcade came to a slow, almost turtle-like advance.