"Steady," she told herself. "Hold on. It's almost over now."

Still the sight of the slim volume lying in its crypt under the drawer's false bottom caused her heart to pound wildly in her breast. She forced herself to lift the book, to touch the raised brown spot with its tuft of hair, to recognize the binding for what it was - human skin.

Swiftly she leafed through the pages. It was all there in a precise gothic hand. Rows of names, addresses, code numbers. This was it. This was the master ODESSA List. This was the document which would damn the Organisation der SS Angehorigen to public scrutiny.

Now the filthy masquerade was all behind Gretchen de Brun. In a matter of minutes she would climb into her Porsche and guide the car through the gates of Castle Grafenegg for the last time. In a matter of minutes, she would begin cleansing her soul of the filthy caresses of Werner Sawade. In a matter of minutes, she would be able to drop the pose of dedication to the Neo-Nazi movement.

She heard the voices wafting through the corridors towards her. Erna Hofmann's rich, throaty, imperious voice. Werner Sawade's shrill, hysterical voice.

"You don't really expect to get rid of me that easily," Erna laughed. "With what I know about you, my liebchen, I can put a noose around your neck in half an hour."

"Don't threaten me!"

"I could tell the authorities a great deal about Herr Doktor Werner Sawade, couldn't I, pet? I could tell them about the experiments. They'd be quite fascinated about T4 and the Unnutze Esser program, wouldn't they?"

There was the sound of a hand slapping bare flesh, a choked gasp and then, "My price has just gone up, lover. That little display of temper will cost you an extra hundred thousand."

The voices became low mumbles. Gretchen de Brun put them out of her mind and returned to her task. Now she lifted her skirt once again and slid the damning book under the waist band of her brief panties. She slid the drawer closed. Her blue eyes searched the room. She was sure she had left no telltale clues behind. Now she crossed the heavy carpet, her long legs moving swiftly to the door.

As she walked, her mind churned remorselessly over the events which had led to this climax. It seemed like some drug-inspired nightmare and yet the sweat which gathered along the column of her spine told her how real it had all been.

For Gretchen de Brun, it had started when Hans Lothar had showed her the photograph of Werner Sawade. The young Austrian had been breathless.

"There isn't any doubt about it. Werner Sawade and Werner Heyde are the same man," Hans had said with conviction. "Heyde's one of the biggest of them. He's the one who trained Christian Wirth, Franz Stangl, Gustav Wagner and no one can say how many more."

Quickly Lothar had sketched in the details. Under the code name Tiegartensrasse 4, Heyde had set up a complex of sanatoriums for the liquidation of ill and mentally incompetent Germans and Austrians who had been referred to under Hitler's plan as Unnutze Esser (Useless Eaters).

With typical Nazi efficiency the program was to serve two purposes. Not only would it implement the plan to rid Germany of its incompetents, it would also toughen the SS butchers in matters of death dealing so that they would feel no moral twinges when they were sent off to head the major extermination camps.

In the sanatoriums, every form of torture and bestial murder were to be employed. They were to become literally schools of death.

Gretchen de Brun had been overcome by the sordidly shocking account of the program. But worst of all was the fact that now, almost fifteen years after the collapse of the Third Reich, Werner Heyde still walked a free man and a respected psychiatrist.

"If all this is true," she'd cried, "why isn't this man Sawade arrested?"

Hans Lothar had shaken his head helplessly. "Evidence," he replied. "Germany wants to forget what it was. It doesn't want to be reminded. There are still too many Germans who feel no guilt. You can't bring a man into court unless you have damning evidence that can't be swept under the rug. Otherwise, they'll laugh you out of court."

And now, as she reached for the door knob, Gretchen de Brun patted her flat stomach, feeling the hardness of the damning book pressing against her moist flesh. Here was the evidence which was needed. Here were the names of the men and women who had participated in the T4 outrages.

She thought of the arrests which would come and the probability of the culprits turning on each other like a pack of maddened rats. Hans Lothar would know what to do with the list. The roundup would be quick and efficient. The questioning would be exhaustive. The bits and pieces would be fitted into place. The mosaic would come alive once more.

She wondered how she had had the courage to go through with it. Lothar had argued persistently against her ideas. "It's insane. While you are in the castle, we won't be able to give you even a modicum of protection. If anything goes wrong, you'll never leave there alive."

Gretchen had touched Hans Lothar's hand. "I was ten years old when the Nazis killed my father before my eyes. I remember how they bound my mother with ropes to a table. They cut away all of her clothes. Then they used their knives on her body. I can still hear her shrieks and smell the blood as they hacked away her breasts. Even after she was no longer breathing, they continued with their work. Do you think I have no reason for wanting vengeance?"

Lothar had put his arm protectively around Gretchen's shoulders. "This work is for professionals. I can't let you get involved."

"But I am involved. Whatever concerns you, concerns me. Don't you understand that? If you can spend your life hunting down the murderers, you cannot stop me from sharing the dangers. You've told me yourself that the work must go on. The world must be made to understand. Were these hollow words? Or were you sincere?"

Lothar shrugged helplessly. "It is not for a woman to do."

"Only a woman can do it. Only a woman can gain Heyde's confidence. Only through a woman can you reach him."

At last Gretchen had prevailed. The documents had been forged, making her a member in good standing of der Spinner (the neo-Nazi underground organization.) The interview had been set up. And Gretchen de Brun had been hired by Werner Sawade as a psychiatric aide.

It had been six months. Six months of worming her way into Sawade's confidence. Six months of being a part of his household in the medieval castle which he used as a sanatorium.

It had been six months of watching the comings and goings of prosperous women and affluent men. It had been six months of monitoring whispered conversations. But worst of all it had been six months of virtual imprisonment. "I demand the total attention of my staff. They must live on the premises. They must be available night and day," Sawade had told her. At best she had been able to get away for only a few hours at a time.

And in those hours she had briefed Hans Lothar on everything she had seen and heard. Lothar had seen the increasing strain etching itself into the lines around her mouth. He had worried over the little telltale signs of tension which mounted within her.

"Drop it," he had whispered. "It isn't worth it."

"Nothing terrible has happened yet." But the way she held on to Lothar told him that she was lying. Her lips searched for his, seeking the reassurance of his embrace. Her body strained to him, blending itself into the eagerness of his loving caress.

She hadn't told him of the way Werner Sawade had come to her quarters in the dead of night and had lain down beside her, pulling the covers from her body. She hadn't told him of the psychiatrist's hands moving over her nakedness, probing, pinching, pummeling, until she had to fight back the shrieks which threatened to explode from her stricken throat.

She hadn't told Lothar of the savagery of Sawade's lovemaking, of his need to inflict terrible pain upon a woman to awaken the juices which lay within him. She hadn't told him of the night when Sawade had ordered her to strip a before him. He'd sat moodily in an over-stuffed chair, watching as garment after garment slipped to the floor. When she had been completely naked, he had pulled the bell cord which hung from the ceiling. Seconds later the bullet-headed guard, Bruno, had shuffled into the room.

Bruno had quickly seized Gretchen and thrown her viciously across the bed. He'd squatted above her, pressing down with all his weight, holding her shoulders pinioned. She'd seen Sawade moving towards her the gleaming scalpel held before him.

The pain had been terrible as he had placed the point of the surgical instrument against her soft flesh. It had been almost unbearable when he'd gouged out the mark of the swastika at a point just above her breast.

She had not screamed, knowing this to would be the test of her loyalty to the mad doctor The room had spun crazily above her. Her body had grown clammy with sweat. She'd watched her own blood oozing onto the silken sheets. And she had remembered the sight of her mother's blood spurting over the walls of her home.

At that moment, she had sworn to herself that, while the breath of life remained within her aching breast, she would not give up. She would make Sawade or Heyde or whoever this monster was pay for his crimes.

Then Sawade had fallen heavily across her, his lust tearing into her loins, his body grinding mercilessly. At last, he had risen.

"You are one of us now," he'd intoned. "You are bound to us by blood." His laugh had been high, cackling, mad, a fearsome thing. The wound had not been deep. It had healed quickly. But the ugly scar remained.

Before turning the door handle, Gretchen touched her shoulder tentatively. She took one last look around Sawade's private office. A vast sense of relief flooded through her. Never would she see this accursed place again. Never would she hear the terrible secrets of the ex-Nazis being flaunted before her.

Never would she be forced to attend the special parties which turned into psychopathic orgies. Never would she be exposed to the sight of men and women donning the uniforms of their murderous past again. There would be no sound of jack boots in the corridors. There would be no "Heils!" No voices raised in singing "Deutschland uber Alles!"

In a matter of minutes, she would be in Hans Lothar's arms. Even now he was awaiting her arrival with the critical piece of evidence. Soon he would be kissing away the memories of horror. Tonight the police would move in. This section of ODESSA would crumble for all time.

As she stepped into the corridor, she heard a high pitched woman's shriek. The marrow froze in her spine. Perhaps it was merely the outcry of a patient under shock therapy in one of the large treatment rooms of Castle Grafenegg. Yet the sound seemed to come from directly below. Still she couldn't be sure. Gretchen fought desperately to keep her nerves under control.

Then from the corner of her eye, she saw the man Bruno shuffling towards her. His hand was raised over his head. A lead filled blackjack dangled from a thong on his wrist.

The afternoon exploded into a million lights. Then an inky blackness reached up to gather Gretchen's stricken body into its maw.

The sensation of pain, terrible and demanding, brought Gretchen back. She felt it grinding into her spine, cascading through her buttocks, knifing into her legs. She was aware of a cold dankness toying with her near-nakedness. Her head pounded where the truncheon had struck.

She wanted desperately to pass her hand across her eyes. But a paralysis gripped her. Why did her wrists ache so? What was this thing which held her immobile?

Slowly, the seemingly unrelated sensations merged into consciousness. Gretchen realized she was lying face down on a cold stone floor. A man's knee was jammed against the small of her back, holding her in position like a butterfly pinned to a board. Her dress had been practically ripped from her body.

She wriggled under the man's weight. He grunted once and slapped her across her hip.

"They are binding me," she realized. The constriction of the ropes around her wrists and ankles brought a sensation of utter helplessness. She knew with startling clarity that there was nothing she could do to protect herself from them.

Gretchen became aware of other sounds. There was the rattle of heavy chains and a woman's terrified sobbing. It was as if the very jaws of Hell had opened up and Gretchen had been catapulted through them.

Gretchen felt them lifting her to her feet. She saw the men dressed once more as they had been some fifteen years ago. The tunics, resplendent with their medals. The breeches which disappeared into authoritarian black leather boots. The Swastika emblazoned arm bands. The SS Death's Head fastened to the choke collars.

There were three of them huddled beneath the flag of the Third Reich which formed a wall tapestry. Sawade and Bruno were there, and a third man whom they addressed as Hoerst.

Bruno said something to Sawade. The psychiatrist moved forward. His fingers gripped Gretchen's dress and tore it away from her bosom. He gathered the shredded cloth in his hands and ripped downward again. His hand probed the flatness of Gretchen's belly, slowly drawing the damning book from its hiding place.

"You are quite right, Bruno. This one is not to be trusted either. Spies! Blackmailers! Sluts! Whores! So you, wish to play with fire? Very well. Then be damned by fire! Hoerst, you know what to do. As in the old days, Kamerad! As in the time when were supreme. You know what to do. Do it!"

Sawade's arms circled Gretchen's waist, bowing her to him. She felt the heat of his legs pressing into her hips from behind. His fingers twisted the flesh of her bound arms. Now, Bruno and the man called Hoerst busied themselves with a contraption which hung by a series of chains from the ceiling. It resembled a shortened diving board, except it had been fitted out with a series of heavy straps.

At a nod from Hoerst, Bruno stooped and scooped up the thrashing shrieking Erna Hoffman in his arms. Her dress, like Gretchen's own, hung from her in ragged tatters. Impotently, she beat her fists against Bruno. Her blows bounced off his naked torso. The guard did terrible things to Erna's body as he carried her to the waiting plank.

Now they laid her down on the boards. Hoerst held her in position as Bruno raised her wrists to straps at the top of the board and locked her wrists in place. He finished securing her arms to the board with straps at her elbows and upper arms before buckling a strap around her waist.

"Noooooooooooooo!" Erna whimpered. She rolled her head from side to side in disbelief. Her classic, Teutonic features were twisted into something horrible to see. "But yes!" contradicted Hoerst. "You must be held completely motionless when I start to work on you! It is delicate work - very delicate work indeed!" His high-pitched laugh sent a chill down Gretchen's spine.

"Werner!" she screamed, as Bruno buckled straps about her upper thighs and her knees. "Not me! I have loved you! The schatzi who spied on you, yes! But not me!" "You are not to be trusted!" Sawade snickered. He looked on approvingly as Bruno buckled the last straps around Erna Hoffmann's trim ankles, pinning her immovably to the board.

"I was blind with jealousy! I'd never harm you! I'd never reveal your true identity."

"You can be very sure you won't," Werner Sawade snickered. "Hoerst, you may begin!"

Wildly, Erna Hoffman struggled against the leather straps. Her mouth was bowed into a continuous shriek as Bruno began to tip the plank so that her feet swung into the air high above her head. At last she laid suspended vertically, her long, red hair hanging down towards the floor.

"You came to spy," Sawade hissed into Gretchen's ear. "Watch this closely. It will prepare you for your own moment of truth."

He giggled in evil anticipation as Hoerst and Bruno began to cut away what remained of Erna Hoffmann's clothing. The two took their time, pulling the shreds of her dress away, then using their knives to cut the rest of it away, until Erna was left strapped to the board in only her underwear and her shoes. Hoerst reached up to remove the high-heeled shoes while Bruno started to use his knife on her garter belt, slicing it into a dozen pieces. Each of the men attacked one of her stockings, alternately shredding the nylon and pulling the shreds away until they threw the pathetic pieces to the floor.

"Noooooooo!" protested Erna, as Bruno reached for her well-filled bra and slipped his fingers under the shoulder straps. Two quick slashes with this knife, and he could stick his knife under the center of the bra, directly between her breasts, and cut it free. Hoerst, not to be outdone, made equally quick work of her panties, and Erna Hoffman was now bound to the board without a single bit of clothing remaining. Her white, voluptuous skin was smooth and velvety, but already the bound woman was beginning to sweat.

It was the sweat of fear.

The man called Hoerst donned a pair of white surgical gloves, carefully sliding his fingers inside them and smoothing away his wrinkles. When he was finished, he slid his gloved fingers across Erna's naked breast, making her whimper in fear as he tweaked one stiff, pink nipple. He smiled as he looked down at the helpless captive, his hand moving between her legs. He must have pinched her or otherwise stimulated, because she gave a sudden cry, her senses suddenly and terribly alive.

"Please," she begged. "Don't hurt me! I'll do anything for you!"

"You have only one thing you can do for us," called Sawade. "You will die for us! But please believe me when I tell you it will not be an easy death! Hoerst is a master, but he needs practice. He will practice on you before he starts on the spy!"

Hoerst was through running his hands over his captive's nudity. He accepted the razor sharp scalpel from his mad assistant and leaned over the helpless captive. She tried to wriggle away as he brought the scalpel to the juncture of her legs. She cried out in terror as she felt the light touch against her skin, just the barest fraction of an inch from the hood of her clitoris.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" echoed through the room as Gretchen gave a cry of numbed disbelief as the scalpel was drawn through Erna Hoffman's reddish pubic hair and over the milky softness of her lower belly. Erna Hofmann's howl of pain joined that of Gretchen as the scalpel moved over her belly, marked by a trickle of blood from the cut, which was extended down her belly. At Hoerst's command, Bruno unfastened Erna's waist strap and held her abdomen tight while the scalpel continued the cut. After the waist strap was re-tightened, Hoerst continued his line of blood between Erna's bare breasts until it reached just below her throat.

Sawade caught Gretchen's head as she tried to turn away from Erna, who alternatively whimpered and screamed woman as Hoerst drew a line from her wrist down her arm and then over her torso. He continued, ordering straps opened as necessary, until the line extended all the way down to Erna's ankle.

"See how careful Hoerst is as he prepares her?" hissed Sawade into Gretchen's ear. "He is recovering his skills quickly! Or maybe he never lost them? Never mind! He will be ready when it is your turn!"

Gretchen's stomach turned over in rebellion at the thought of being strapped, naked and helpless, to that board so that she could do nothing to stop that madman from making cuts all about her body as he was doing to Erna.

He must have some kind of insane plan in his mind! Gretchen thought in terror. I have no idea what it is, but I'll go insane if he does that to me! Or I'll die!

Neither of the two women was left long in doubt as to Hoerst's malevolent intentions, as he ordered the board raised higher and used the scalpel to pry up a flap of Erna's skin at her wrist. Taking hold of it carefully, he began to use his scalpel to separate her white skin from her underlying flesh.

Erna screamed in pain. Gretchen screamed in unmitigated horror.

"Yes, he's skinning Erna alive!" said Sawade, and Gretchen could hear the pleasure in his voice. "Flaying her! I have been planning to have you flayed just like this, as soon as you made your move - yes, I have known for some time that you were sent to spy on me - but I worried that Hoerst might have lost some of his skill and you might die prematurely, before you were completely skinned. Erna's little rebellion just meant she would be first, so Hoerst could recover his skills before he starts on you. But it appears I worried about nothing. Look at him! He has lost nothing!"

"You're mad!" screamed Gretchen at him. Sawade just chuckled and turned her head back and pulled her eyelids open so that she was forced to watch Hoerst as he peeled the skin from Erna's arm as she screamed in agony and denial.

Gretchen was forced to watch it all as both of Erna's arms were flayed and Hoerst began to peel the skin from her chest. She would have thrown up as the skin was peeled from each of Erna's large breasts, but she had eaten nothing that day.

"Look!" ordered Sawade. "Look how carefully he preserves the skin of her nipples! And see how he works from the bottom upward, so the blood flows downward away from his knife, so he can see clearly as he works!"

"You're monsters!" retorted Gretchen, but even she could feel that the fire of her anger had drained away, leaving nothing but the fear in its place.

"Even more, see how Erna remains conscious of what he is doing!" he continued. "That is part of his skill - to position her upside down, so the blood to her head keeps her from fainting! Remember that when he is working on you, when he's peeling the skin away from your naked body - you cannot faint! You will remain conscious and aware of everything that is done to you!"

Hoerst worked methodically and slowly, peeling back Erna's perfect skin as he moved up her torso. Her screams did not affect him except to make him occasionally smile, and her struggles, constrained as they were, caused him little problem. The woman's life blood flowed down her body, down her arms and her neck and her hair before dripping to the floor. It formed a pool at her torturer's feet, but the pool was not particularly large. Hoerst had severed no blood vessels, either major or minor, so it was like the wound when one incurred a very bad scrape. Except this scrape went through all three layers of Erna's skin and was extending over more and more of her body.

Gradually, the bound woman began to turn into a mound of exposed, quivering flesh as Hoerst finished with her torso and began on her legs. The process had been going on for what seemed to be hours, and it seemed hours longer before he finished flaying her legs. The entire front of her still-shapely body was a mass of red, raw, and weeping flesh. "Pull her head up!" ordered Sawade. "Let her look at herself!"

Erna's scream was a thing of maddened agony and horror as she was forced to look on what had been done to her. At how her beautiful body had been turned into a thing of malignant horror. Gretchen screamed curses at him, but he only smiled.

"May I salt the front of her body, Herr Obersturmbannführer?" asked Hoerst.

"Of course, my dear Hoerst. Make the traitor scream as the salt seeps into her wounds! Show this one what she has to look forward to."

"Thank you, Herr Obersturmbannführer!" Hoerst said, turning away with a broad smile on his face.

"Think on how deftly Hoerst's surgically trained fingers separated her smooth, velvety skin from her flesh!" he said cruelly to Gretchen, as Erna's screams began again and quickly reached maniacal level. "Imagine how every one of her millions of nerve endings have been exposed, how they are now so searingly, burningly alive! It must be unendurable as the air of the room moves over those exposed nerve endings, but think of the agony she is feeling now as Hoerst dusts salt all over her! That must be terrible in itself, but imagine what it would feel like to have a fingernail drawn over her raw flesh! Even better, imagine how a hot iron or the flame from a candle would make her go mad from agony! Think on how you're going to endure having all the same things done to you!"

As his peals of laughter rang through the room and made Gretchen retch with nauseated horror, the board with its half-flayed occupant was being lowered to the horizontal. Quickly, the straps were loosened from the twitching, still screaming woman. Then they turned her flayed side to the board and re-tightened the straps so that her back was exposed to the terrible flaying knives.

And all the time Sawade held Gretchen in his arms, ordering her to watch the obscene cruelties as Hoerst began to peel the white flesh from the back or Erna's body.

At last, the quivering carrion of Erna's body was cut loose and allowed to flop to the floor. But she still lived, so Sawade ordered her hung from the ceiling by a meathook jammed into the bottom of her jaw so it pierced her tongue before emerging from her mouth.

"It is your turn now, liebchen!" Sawade hissed into Gretchen's ear, and she felt herself being propelled forward. She tried to struggle, kicking out desperately at Bruno, but her bound ankles restricted her, so he was easily able to grab her ankles while Hoerst hefted her by the shoulders.

I'm being lifted onto the board! she thought in terror. The board where Erna was flayed! The board where they're going to...

She screamed in horror as she felt the stickiness of Erna Hofmann's blood on her own back where her clothing had been torn away. She bit her lips to stifle her moans as her bonds were cut and the heavy straps were buckled about her - wrists, arms, waist, legs, and ankles. She was held immobile on the board, unable to move or squirm away, and she felt the blood rushing to her head as the board was tipped upward. Her long, blonde hair cascaded almost to the floor.

Now they began to strip the remnants of her clothing from her, as they had Erna's. It took little to remove the remnants of her blouse, and Bruno's knife made short work of her skirt, which had fallen down over her torso. She raised her head against gravity and looked up her half-naked body, seeing her shapely body intact for the last time.

The next time I see myself, I'll look like Erna, she thought in a frantic terror so extreme that it reached all the way to her soul. All the front of my body, my breasts, my belly, my legs, will be simply a mass of raw, twitching meat. And I'll be conscious through it all, incapable of rational thought, aware only of the agony as this monster peels my skin away, praying only to die...

"Take special care with this one," ordered Sawade, as Bruno removed Gretchen's shoes and threw them aside. "I want her alive and responsive when you finish. There are many, many things I want to do to stimulate her raw flesh!"

"Jawohl, Herr Obersturmbannführer!" barked Hoerst. "I will make sure your schatzi is awake and properly aware of everything you will do to her flayed body! I have an injection that will ensure it!"

Gretchen felt fingers at her panties and garter belt, and moments later the cool air of the torture room slid over the bare flesh of her loins. She felt the shoulder straps of her bra severed, and she could not stop herself from looking up to see Hoerst sever the middle strap of her bra so her naked breasts tumbled free. Her head sagged backward in nauseated despair. She felt the hands at her stockings rip the last shreds away from her legs and knew that she was completely naked. The mere fact of being naked, even in front of these men, meant little to her. Not after seeing what was done to Erna. It was her total and complete vulnerability that filled her with trepidation that mounted by the second and threatened to overwhelm her.

Now they'll start flaying me, she thought with a wretched desolation, but she still started and cried out as she felt the touch of the cool metal of the scalpel at her groin. She knew what to expect now, and she waited for the blade to move through the blonde curls of her pubic hair as it easily sliced into her skin.

Suddenly, Hoerst stood up and turned to Sawade. "I have changed my mind. My skills are better than even I expected. I am going to try to take the skin off this one in one piece. One piece for her front, that is. And one piece for her back."

"If you think you can do it, then go ahead," Sawade said negligently. "I just want her flayed front and back like Erna."

"And I would like to have her skin tanned and preserved, as we used to," continued Hoerst.

"I know someone who can do that," agreed Sawade.

"Thank you, Herr Obersturmbannführer," said Hoerst before turning back to Gretchen.

"Raise her higher, Bruno," he ordered. "I want to start with her hands and her fingers."

Gretchen felt the board she was strapped to rise higher, and then another lurch that she knew were ropes securing the bottom of the board to the floor so it would not sway when the mad doctor was working on her.

When he was flaying her alive. She started to cry, sobbing for all the things she would miss. A loving husband, children, a good life. Instead, she was going to die in the abattoir...to die in the worst possible manner.

Hoerst started at Gretchen de Brun's right wrist and held her hand down while he traced a cut along the side of her hand. Then he held each finger down against the board and sliced around the outside. Gretchen had not expected this, since he had not skinned Erna's hands or her feet. All along the line of the cuts he had made, she felt an icy-hot feeling that quickly turned so stinging pain.

"You thought to spy on us!" boomed Sawade. "Now you will learn what the just desserts of a spy are!"

She could no longer hold back the sobs and the moans as the Nazi doctor began to work down her arm, tracing his lines of blood over her smooth, olive flesh. She didn't even struggle as Erna had tried when the straps were unbuckled so Hoerst could continue his lines of pain. She merely accepted what was being done to her as he worked, knowing that this was merely preparation. She waited for the real pain to start.

But when it did start, she found she was not prepared. She felt a flap of skin at the side of her thumb prised up, and Hoerst started to slice with his scalpel, gradually peeling the skin from the pad of her right thumb. It was terrible! Horrible! Not just the pain, but the knowledge of her mutilation! Despite her best intentions to endure her martyrdom with fortitude and courage, Gretchen had to bite back the shriek that bubbled up from deep, deep inside her as he peeled the skin all her thumb all the way to its base. Then he moved to her forefinger...

The nerves exposed on the flayed part of her thumb were sending mixed messages up her nervous system as Hoerst worked on her finger, and her thumb was actually the major source of pain. It felt icy hot, then that changed to hot stabbing pains, like white-hot needles being shoved into her flesh. The flesh that was now raw and seeping blood. After Hoerst finished with her forefinger and moved to the next one, Gretchen found the agony emanating from her flayed finger joining that of her thumb. It's terrible! she thought through a haze of pain. Unendurable! Excruciating! And it's continuing! Endless agony!

Slowly, the long, endless minutes crept by for the tortured girl who clamped her teeth against her screams as her fingers and then her palm was flayed until all the skin was separated. Hoerst used surgical tape to hold the skin away from the area he was working on as he moved up her arm, slowly peeling the smooth skin away from the slender limb until the upper side of her arm was flayed from wrist to shoulder.

Gretchen remained courageous and resistant as her left hand and then her left arm was also denuded of skin. Even when Hoerst started to work at her shoulders and chest, she managed to strangle the worst of her screams, but she started to break as he peeled the flesh away from her sensitive armpits. That's not like my fingers! she thought in terrorized panic. It's excruciating! And he's starting to flay the upper slopes of my breasts!

She tried to grit her teeth harder, but she broke suddenly some time later, shrieking suddenly, "God help me! Aeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! Please! No more! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!"

Half her right breast showed raw and weeping, but she couldn't stand the agony of having the skin peeled away from her right nipple - it overwhelmed her.

"Please God! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhh! Let me die! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhh! No more! I can't stand the pain any more!"

"Your God has abandoned you, liebchen," laughed Sawade, squatting beside her, "and you will learn to stand the pain, just as Erna did. Hoerst is doing wonderful work on your luscious body. Your delightful teat looks so very beautiful without any skin on it - in fact, it's more luscious without skin than it is with! I hope the agony of having your breast flayed is overwhelming - I certainly hope so! And Hoerst has not even started on the other one."

Rising to his feet, Sawade called to Hoerst, "Continue, Kamerad! Finish the traitor's breast and do her other one! I want to see both her teats devoid of skin!"

Gretchen no longer made an attempt to hold back her scream as Hoerst finished skinning her nipple and continued with the underside of her right breast. Then he started on her left breast, slowly and carefully stripping it of skin as the endless horror continued for the helpless, naked girl strapped to the flaying board.

Time didn't exist for Gretchen de Brun as the monster sliced away the skin of her softly curved belly, taking care to peel away the blonde curls at her groin without damaging the skin. He took significantly longer after he flayed her hips and began to work on her plump sex lips. But eventually he stood up with a cry of triumph, ignoring the straining body and the mad screams of the tortured girl strapped to the board.

"I have done it! I peeled your schatzi's cunt lips without a single tear!" he cried. He winked at Sawade and continued, "I left her love button and her inner lips, but I expect you have some ideas in mind for those sensitive areas!"

Sawade nodded. "I think a hot soldering iron applied to her clit will stimulate little Gretchen quite effectively."

"Good, good!" Hoerst enthused, and turned back to his work.

It took another hour for Hoerst to finish skinning Gretchen's legs, and another hour after that to peel her feet and toes. Then he triumphantly held up the expanse of translucent, blood-smeared flesh that had once been the part of the lovely form of the pain-crazed girl strapped to the board. The entire front side of her was now raw meat, save only for her neck and face.

"Complete! No a single rip or tear!" he crowed, and proudly displayed the expanse of flesh to his companions. It hardly looked like it had ever been on a human body, and only the dark brown of her nipples and the gold curls of pubic hair indicated the body might have been feminine.

"Congratulations!" said Sawade and pointed to the large, open-mouthed jug containing preservative. "Place it in there until you finish with her back side."

Beaming and chuckling with pleasure, Hoerst was quick to comply while Sawade rose and crossed over to Gretchen. Tangling his fingers in her blood-stained hair, he lifted her head so that she looked up the column of her naked body. It was more naked than ever, since it was also naked of skin.

"Oh, God," she moaned as her eyes drank in the total ruin of her body. She had never even imagined a woman could endure such pain as she had endured while being skinned. She would have thought she would die if subjected to pain of that magnitude. But she had not died! And she hadn't been able to faint even once!

"Please...you've destroyed me. Let me die...please let me die. I just...just want to die."

"Not just yet, Liebchen," Sawade said cruelly. "I want Hoerst to salt you down like he did with Erna before he collects the skin on your back."

With the skin from Gretchen's front safely submerged in the preservative, Hoerst lowered the board and retrieved his large shaker of salt. Gretchen's eyes were pools of madness as he positioned the shaker over her throat.

"No, please, no," she whispered desperately. "Not the salt...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaahhh!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!! YYYYIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!"

Slowly the monster moved down her still shapely body, making sure that every square millimeter of her skin received a sufficient quota of salt to bring her nerves to full, maximal sensation. As the waves of agony washed through her, he returned to pay special attention to her one-time magnificent bosom and the flayed flesh at her groin. He even took the top off the salt shaker and poured mounds of salt into his palm before massaging it into the flayed mounds of her breasts and juncture of her legs, where her soft sex lips reached new highs of evil sensation.

Once he was finished, he and Bruno turned the half-skinned girl over to work on her untouched back. She screamed wildly at every touch to her flayed flesh, and being laid on her well-salted front side while the straps were buckled was an agony in itself.

Shortly, Hoerst was happily back at work, and Gretchen de Brun was shrieking her torment. She begged occasionally to be put to death, but she usually was too busy shrieking as her skin was separated from her hands, arms, and then down the slim line of her back. The work became more difficult over her perfect buttocks, as Hoerst had to maneuver around her curves, especially when he peeled the flesh from the cleft between her raw cheeks. But he was back in his element, with a chance to display and flaunt his skills, and he was quick to point to the flawless skin of Gretchen's ass, including most of crinkled anus.

"Never before have I managed this!" he crowed again. "Not only her navel and her cunt lips but now her anus! Another triumph!"

Gretchen's opinion of his work was not solicited as he again bent over her. Eventually, after an eternity of agony, Hoerst was able to hold up the entirety of the skin of Gretchen de Brun's back. The girl who wanted only to help Hans Lothar bring a despicable Nazi to justice had been flayed from the tips of her fingers to the tips of her toes.

After Hoerst deposited this trophy in a second jug of preservative, Sawade rose to his feet.

"And now to show our two traitors the fruits of their betrayal," he proclaimed as the board was lowered and Gretchen's skinless body was loosened. "Hang this one up beside Erna, but hang her from her hair. I want to be able to hear her scream."

Bruno was quick to gather up Gretchen's blood-stained hair and knot a meat hook into it. She was roused to awareness as the massive beast picked her up lightly in his arms, shrieking at the intolerable agony of his touch on her flayed skin, but Bruno ignored her as he stepped on a stool so he could hang the hook wound into her hair over the curve of a second hook beside Erna's dangling form. When he stepped away, Gretchen hung limply from her hair, moaning and whimpering from the agony that washed through her skinless body. Except for their faces and hair, both girls looked like butchered steers hanging in a meat wagon.

Hoerst had paused in front of the motionless Erna before turning to Sawade. "I think Fraulein Hoffman has expired, Herr Obersturmbannführer," he said mildly. "She isn't breathing, at any rate."

Sawade shrugged. "My interest is more with dear Gretchen. Now that you've so magnificently prepared her, I only think I'll need a soldering iron plugged in to an electrical outlet and some of your tools from your bag, Hoerst. Some of those sharp things, especially the ones with hooks and the ones that look like tiny garden rakes. You know the ones. I would like to entertain dearest Gretchen by myself, just she and I. We have so many, many things to discuss, after all. I need to know her contacts, and I think she'll be more than willing to tell me everything."

With a chuckle, the two men placed the tools Sawade requested on a low table beside the chair he dragged over to the dangling body of his former lover. As the two men walked down the hall, each of them carrying one of the preservative jug, they heard the first scream from behind them as Sawade dragged the implement looking like a small garden rake of the belly of the flayed woman.

Gretchen de Brun had just began to learn how sensitive raw flesh could be to sharp objects and hot metal.

It was a long, very thorough lesson, and Herr Doktor Werner Sawade was very attentive to make sure the flayed girl received the full benefit of the instruction he planned for her. He applied the hot soldering iron and the flame from his cigarette lighter all over her skinned body, luxuriating in her ululating shrieks of anguish. She was equally responsive to each of the dozen tools Hoers had left behind.

Gretchen de Brun did indeed divulge every secret she knew or even guessed at before very long, but her learning was not considered complete, at least by her instructor, who put down the sharp, hook-like probe which had induced so many screams as he dragged it over her raw skin.

"I think a little more heat on raw flesh would be appropriate now," he said, picking up the hot soldering iron.

"Now where have I missed?" he asked himself as he leaned forward. The maniacal screams resumed, echoing through the cellar corridors, but the walls and doors were thick and the screams were confined to the downstairs. They crescendoed as the hot iron was stroked along Gretchen's raw, weeping sex lip and then lightly touched her unflayed clitoris. Her screams reached a higher pitch as the hot tip probed inside her vagina, echoing down the corridors, and was possibly even louder as it probed the tight rosette of her flayed anus. Those continued through the rest of the night and all the following afternoon. They did not cease until very near midnight of the following evening.

The bodies of Erna Hoffman and Gretchen de Brun were never found. However, others took up the search for the maniacal Werner Heyde, and he was finally arrested in 1961. Heyde or Sawade, as he chose to call himself, never lived to face a jury. Instead, he took the easy way - a way he would not have allowed his victims. He fashioned a noose out of his leather belt and hanged himself with it. ODESSA had lost one of it most important members.

But, as this story is being published, ODESSA still exists. Its membership covers the four corners of the earth. Through its channels the Nazi murderers still keep in touch, waiting for the day when they can move once more against decency and humanity.