For a brief moment, silence again returned. All was still, heavy feet planted in readiness, rifles poised. The only movement was the swirling dust kicked up from the tires still dancing in the glare of the silent headlights.

Then slowly he continued his walk forward toward the door, feet crunching across the dry gravel.

He did not even try the door.

An explosion from his pistol shattered the lock and sent splinters of wood flying. He raised his foot and clubbed it into the door, sending it crashing back with a thudding echo throughout the house.

With a signal from his hand, suddenly the storm troopers behind him sprang into motion. They followed Korsch across the threshold, and within sixty seconds the entire house resounded with the pillaging sounds of violation and plunder.

It did not take long for the verdict to be announced.

From above one of the men called loudly down the stairway to Korsch.

“Es ist leer, mein Herr!”

The face of their leader turned ashen with disbelief.

It could not be empty! How could the fox have escaped the net!

“Have you searched every floor, every room?” he demanded. Even as he spoke, he knew it was true. Every light in the place now gave visual evidence that no one was here. The sounds he had expected to hear by now, the sounds of running and scurrying and screaming and shouting—there was none of it. Only the hollow sounds of his own men running about… but finding nothing.

“Yes, mein Herr,” answered the man. “Every floor.”

“Continue your search!” shouted Korsch. “They must be here somewhere. These Jew-hiders are fond of fabricating secret rooms and fake walls and secret passageways. Tear the place apart if you have to! I want them! Let me hear the sounds of guns and destruction. If they are not here, then we will leave the place in ruins in case they ever decide to come back!”

Wrath quickly replacing his shock, Korsch stormed through the now-lit corridors and to the rear courtyard, where the contingent of men still stood guard.

“You men,” he shouted. “Search every barn, every building on the estate. They may be hiding. Send the fire of your machine guns through the floors and into the rafters and lofts. Take nothing for granted. Blow the buildings apart! Let me know if there are vehicles anywhere.”

Immediately ten men charged off toward the outbuildings of the estate.

Already gunfire was exploding throughout the house. Windows shattered, doors were blown off their hinges, every bedroom was turned inside out. It did not take long for the secret bedrooms and hiding places of the second floor to be found.

Korsch was summoned.