The Last Mission

[jak7139]

Finally have a spare moment for some more feedback:

Eloise’s mind was full of her father. Suddenly he was a child and she was taking care of him, as he and Marion had once cared for her. Whenever her father had come to mind over the past years, which was daily, the image was always of him in the prime of his manhood, her father…and she always his little girl. Suddenly the mortality of his frame was a present and visible reality.

That's how aging works. Everyone grows up, and the young eventually, hopefully, take care of their parents. It's a strange symmetry.

and that for a period I and my fellow Germans were forced to beg for mercy at the hands of the Allied tyrants.

They are now forced to beg for mercy from the Soviet tyrants. Nothing has changed.

“You just have to know how to deal with him.”

A man like the Fox only understands money. But if he thinks he can get more money by betraying you, then you're out of luck.

“You cannot arrest me,” rasped Schlaukopf in as agitated a voice as he was capable of, backing slowly away from the suddenly hostile interview. “I am still the only one who can deliver the Englishman to you.”

Schlaukopf has tried to play both sides, so ends up with nothing. A classic comeuppance!

He turned and ran to his chief, who still stood stupidly numb at the scene before him. “Come…come, Herr Adler!” he urged, trying to wake his boss to the imperative and renewed need for haste. “They will get away if we do not intercept them.”

“Get away…who…?” mumbled Wilhelm.

“The Englishman and the escaped prisoner. They are not coming here at all. We must hurry!”

“I do not…what do you…”

“I know where to locate them…if it is not already too late! Come…we must take the helicopter!”

Reminds me of this:

I will probably be too late. But I have to see if there is anything left I can do to help.

One must always try, you never know what might happen.

Wilhelm leaned out of the cockpit, took aim, then threw the explosive toward the van, heedless now of the thought that he was attempting to kill the very woman he had tried to convince himself all these years he loved.

Desperation and anger makes people do strange things. Wilhelm's love is possessive, not genuine, so the moment his ability to possess and control her (through Heinrich's imprisonment) slips away, he snaps.

She lay crumpled on the ground dead.

NO!

“Have you remembered anything since waking?”

The slow movement of the head this time went the opposite direction.

No...No...

I'm so relieved the amnesia was temporary. This story could've gone down a much darker route otherwise.

She whom he had been chasing ceased her flight, not because of a friendly touch, but because she realized the futility of fighting her pursuer any longer.

This has horrible implications when applied to Wilhelm and Eloise's relationship.

Investigations indicate that the pilot of the helicopter and his passenger, an unnamed official, were both killed. The number of passengers in the van has not been determined. Officials from the GDR report only that there were no survivors from the attempt. Estimates range from three to six deaths among the escapees in all, but no official reports have been released.

Glad Ian came to the same conclusion as me: how can he trust these "official" reports?

So he had clung by a slender thread to his belief. To give it up would be to relinquish what they had shared together…and that he would never lose sight of.

The thread is fragile now, anything could snap it. But it will grow stronger with time.

“Break in!” repeated Ed. “People are trying to get out of East Berlin…and you want to break in?”

This is like a line from a movie!

Uncle will be annoyed that he almost laid his hands on the old rabbi he was seeking

Korsch, Galanov, and Wilhelm are all alive then. Bad luck for Ian.

Adler would kill for what she possessed. He had already killed for it, though unsuccessfully. To divulge it, however, would be to doom her own chances to turn the inclination of his affections in her direction.

I really like how you develop the minor characters and show their importance. We may never see Lola again, but she has made a choice that will ripple throughout the rest of the story.

Ian and Ed in the Bavarian chateau together was very sweet and wholesome. I know want a sitcom of just that.

 

[TheExecuter]

Finally have a spare moment for some more feedback:

Yay!

I am glad that you were able to get the time.

A man like the Fox only understands money. But if he thinks he can get more money by betraying you, then you're out of luck.

Betrayal is indeed inevitable in that situation, something Eloise had the sense to understand.

Schlaukopf has tried to play both sides, so ends up with nothing. A classic comeuppance!

Yup. I enjoyed imagining his surprise at losing the race to violent escalation.

One must always try, you never know what might happen.

Indeed. Willy here makes an incredibly courageous choice.

Desperation and anger makes people do strange things. Wilhelm's love is possessive, not genuine, so the moment his ability to possess and control her (through Heinrich's imprisonment) slips away, he snaps.

This is a pretty good assessment of how Wilhelm's feelings have been toward Eloise. It seems he compulsively destroys anything he grasps for, doesn't it?

NO!

Yup.

:'(

Of course, the prologue kind of tells you this is coming...but not how and when...

No...No...

I'm so relieved the amnesia was temporary. This story could've gone down a much darker route otherwise.

I don't think I would have been able to stand writing something that dark. I can imagine it, yes...but trying to inhabit the characters and actually GO there, in writing format? I'm not sure I could do it...

This has horrible implications when applied to Wilhelm and Eloise's relationship.

Yet another dream sequence with clues about what is happening...

Glad Ian came to the same conclusion as me: how can he trust these "official" reports?

It is, after all, the way of Despotic regimes...the 'news' is pretty much all propaganda.

So what really happened?

The thread is fragile now, anything could snap it. But it will grow stronger with time.

This is the way...
the truth...
and the life...

This is like a line from a movie!

I often imagine scenes and dialogue as though I am watching a movie in my head.

Korsch, Galanov, and Wilhelm are all alive then. Bad luck for Ian.

I suppose so, yes. Plenty of enemies to deal with!

I really like how you develop the minor characters and show their importance. We may never see Lola again, but she has made a choice that will ripple throughout the rest of the story.

Thanks!

The breadth of influence people have on other people's lives goes way deeper and is much more far reaching than most of us imagine.

The concept of God's care for people goes way beyond what we generally think about when considering the sovereignty of God and his promises to provide or to work things out for good. It's mind boggling to me, and I tried as one of the themes of this story to develop and demonstrate some of that experienced truth.

Ian and Ed in the Bavarian chateau together was very sweet and wholesome. I now want a sitcom of just that.

I'm glad this landed. I really wanted to show Ian and Ed's relationship post Part 1 and the war directly...and doing so now also gave me a way to give some difference in tone from a very tough and heavy period of Ian's story.

I had never thought of their relationship together as fodder for a sitcom, but it definitely could work. Particularly the juxtaposition of their past, their current professions, and the type of shenanigans that we could imagine the two of them to be capable of!

There is also a need to demonstrate that Ian is making the choice to find the truth about what happened from a position of safety and a place where joy will come. Will he pursue the truth even if it costs him the prospect of a wholesome and joyful position?

Does he go back to what he had before...or does he press on into the unknown, fulfilling the promise he made earlier?