"I... uh... think he said... that he owns a donkey and a rooster that sings."
"Is he trying to be funny, or is he insane?"
Michael released a guttural bark, and Blok stepped back two paces. And then Michael looked to his side, at Mouse"s corpse. One of the soldiers was trying to get Mouse"s closed right fist open. The fingers wouldn"t give. Suddenly Boots strode forward, lifted a foot, and smashed it down on the hand. Bones cracked like matchsticks, and Michael stood in shock as Boots crunched his weight down on the hand. When the huge man raised his foot again, the fingers were splayed and broken. There in the palm was a Cross of Iron.
Boots leaned over, started to reach for the medal.
Michael said, in German, "If you touch that, I"ll kill you."
The man"s voice-sure and steady-made Boots pause. He blinked uncertainly, his hand outstretched to grasp a dead man"s last possession. Michael stared at him, smelling the heat of wildness burning in his veins. He was close to the change... very, very close. If he wanted it, it was right there within easy reach...
Blok"s pistol, held at the colonel"s side, came up in a savage arc and thudded into Michael"s t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. Michael gasped in agony and dropped to his knees.
"Now, now, Baron," Blok chided. "Threats are beneath royalty, don"t you agree?" He nodded at Boots, who plucked up the Iron Cross into his own fist. "Baron, we"re going to get to know each other very well indeed. You may learn to sing in a higher register before I"m done with you. Haul him up, please," he told two soldiers, and the men pulled Michael to his feet. Pain throbbed in Michael"s groin, doubling him over; even as a wolf, he wouldn"t get very far before he crumpled into an exhausted heap. Now was not the time, or the place. He let the wild call drift away from him, like a fading echo.
"Come on, we"ve got a distance to travel." Blok walked up the hillside, and the soldiers shoved Michael ahead of them. Other soldiers walked on either side of him, their guns ready. Boots followed at a distance, the Iron Cross in his hand, and a few more soldiers began to drag Mouse"s body up toward the road. Michael did not look at Mouse again; the little man was gone, and he would not have to face the torture that awaited.
Blok looked up at the blue sky, and his silver teeth gleamed brightly as he smiled. "Ah, it"s a beautiful day, isn"t it?" he said, to no one in particular. He would leave a detachment of troops to continue searching for her, and he had no doubt that the b.i.t.c.h would be found soon. She couldn"t have gotten very far. After all, she was only a woman. His heart was hurting for being such a fool, but he looked forward to having Chesna in his hands. He had considered himself her agreeable uncle when he"d thought she was a loyal n.a.z.i; now, however, a traitor of Chesna"s magnitude merited treatment that was less familial and more familiar. But what a scandal! This must be kept from the newspapers, at all costs! And, also, from the prying eyes and ears of Himmler. So, a question: where to take the baron for interrogation?
Ah, yes! Blok thought. Of course!
He watched as the baron was shoved into the rear of a truck and made to lie down on his back with his hands pinned under him. A soldier sat next to him, with a rifle barrel pressed against his throat.
Blok walked over to confer with the truck driver as other soldiers continued their search in the forest for Germany"s Golden Girl.
5.
Michael smelled his destination before he saw it. He was still lying on his back on the truck"s metal bed, his arms pinned underneath him, with armed soldiers sitting all around. The cargo bay had been covered with gray canvas, shutting off all but a crack of sunlight. His sense of direction was impaired, though he knew they weren"t heading into the city; the road was far too rough for the civilian wheels of Berlin. No, this road had been tortured by its share of truck tires and heavy vehicles, and his back muscles gripped with pain every time a rut shook vibrations through the floor.
A strong smell seeped in through the canvas. The soldiers had noticed it as well; some of them shifted nervously and whispered to each other. The odor was getting stronger. He had smelled something akin to it, in North Africa, when he"d come upon a group of British soldiers who"d been hit by a flamethrower. Once the sickly-sweet smell of charred human flesh got up your nostrils, you never forgot it. This smell had burning wood in it, too. Pine wood, Michael thought. Something that burned very hot and fast.
One of the soldiers got up and lurched to the rear of the truck, to be sick. Michael heard two others whispering and caught a word: "Falkenhausen."
His destination was known. Falkenhausen concentration camp. Blok"s child.
The smell drifted away. The wind had changed, Michael thought. But what in the name of G.o.d had been burning? The truck stopped, and stayed motionless for a moment or two. Over the low grumble of the engine he heard hammers at work. And then the truck continued on about a hundred yards or so, stopped again, and a strident voice shouted, "Bring out the prisoner!"
The canvas was whipped back. Michael was hauled out of the truck, into harsh sunlight, and he stood before a German major of the Waffen SS, a thick-bodied man wearing a black uniform that bulged at the seams. The man had a fleshy, ruddy face with eyes that were as white and hard as diamonds, but with none of their l.u.s.ter. He wore a black, flat-brimmed cap, and his brown hair was cropped to the scalp. Around his girth was a holster that bore a Walther pistol and a baton of ebony rubber: a bone-bruiser.
Michael glanced around. Saw wooden barracks, gray stone walls, dense green treetops beyond them. A new barracks building was going up, and prisoners in striped uniforms were hammering the joints together as guards with submachine guns stood in the shadows. Thick coils of barbed wire formed inner walls, and at the corners of the outer stone walls stood wooden guard towers. He saw an entrance gate, also of wood, and above it the stone arch he"d seen in the framed photograph in Blok"s suite. A dark haze hung in the air, slowly drifting over the forest. He caught the scent again: burning flesh.
"Eyes front!" the n.a.z.i major shouted, and grasped Michael"s chin to jerk his head around.
A soldier jabbed a rifle into his spine. Another soldier wrenched his coat off, then tore his shirt away so hard the pearl b.u.t.tons flew into the air. Michael"s belt was removed, and his pants lowered. His underwear was pulled down. The rifle jabbed him again, in the kidneys. Michael knew what they wanted him to do, but he stared fixedly into the major"s colorless eyes and kept both feet on the ground.
"Remove your shoes and socks," the man said.
"Does this mean we"re engaged?" Michael asked.
The baton came out of the holster. Its tip pressed against Michael"s chin. "Remove your shoes and socks," the major repeated.
Michael caught movement to his left. He glanced in that direction and saw Blok and Boots approaching.
"Eyes front!" the major commanded, and swung the baton a short, brutal blow against Michael"s wounded thigh. Pain exploded through his leg as the gash burst open again, oozing scarlet, and Michael fell to his knees in the chalky dust. A rifle barrel looked him in the face.
"Baron," Blok said, "I"m afraid you"re in our kingdom now. Will you obey Major Krolle, please?"
Michael hesitated, pain pounding in his thigh and beads of sweat on his face. A booted foot was planted on his back and drove him down into the dust. Boots leaned his weight on Michael"s spine, making Michael grit his teeth.
"You really do want to cooperate, Baron," Blok went on. Then, to Krolle, "He"s a Russian. You know how stubborn those sons of b.i.t.c.hes can be."
"We cure stubbornness here," Krolle said, and while Boots held Michael down, two soldiers took off his shoes and socks. Now he was totally naked, and his wrists were clasped behind him with iron manacles. He was hauled to his feet, then shoved in the direction the soldiers wanted him to go. He offered no resistance; it would only lead to broken bones, and he was still exhausted from his battle with Sandler and the flight through the forest. There was no time to mourn Mouse, or to bewail his own predicament; these men meant to torture every shred of information out of him. It was to his advantage, though, that they thought he was an agent of the Soviet Union, because his presence would keep their attention on the East and away from the West.
It was a large camp. Distressingly large, Michael thought. Everywhere stood barracks buildings, most of green-painted wood, and hundreds of tree stumps testified to the fact that Falkenhausen had been carved out of the forest. Michael saw pallid, emaciated faces watching him through narrow windows with hinged shutters. Groups of skinny, bald prisoners pa.s.sed, herded by guards with submachine guns and rubber batons. Michael noted that almost all the prisoners wore yellow Stars of David pinned to their clothes. His nudity seemed commonplace, and drew no attention. Off in the distance, perhaps two hundred yards, was a camp within the camp, more barracks enclosed by coils of barbed wire. Michael could see what looked like three or four hundred prisoners standing in rows on a dusty parade ground, while a loudspeaker droned on about the Thousand-Year Reich. He saw, in the distance on his left, a squat building of gray stones; from its two chimneys arose columns of dark smoke that drifted toward the forest. He heard the groan and rumble of heavy machinery, though he couldn"t see where the noise was coming from. A change in the wind brought another odor to his nostrils: not the burned flesh smell this time, but a reek of unwashed, sweating humanity. In that smell there were notes of decay, corruption, excrement, and blood. Whatever was going on here, he thought as he watched the columns of smoke belch from the chimneys, had more to do with erasure than confinement.
Three trucks came along the road from the direction of the gray stone building, and Michael was ordered to halt. He stood at the roadside, a rifle barrel against his skull, while the trucks approached. Krolle flagged them down and took Blok and Boots around to the back of the first truck. Michael watched them as Krolle spoke to Blok and the major"s ruddy face beamed with excitement. "The quality is excellent," Michael heard Krolle say. "In the entire system Falkenhausen"s product stands out as the zenith." Krolle ordered a soldier to remove one of the pinewood boxes stacked in the rear of the truck. The soldier began to pry its nails open with his knife. "You"ll see I"m continuing the standards of quality you so strongly demanded, Colonel," Krolle went on, and Michael saw Blok nod and smile, pleased with the a.s.s-kissing.
The box"s last nail was popped open, and Krolle reached in. "You see? I defy any other camp to match this quality."
Krolle was holding a handful of long, reddish-brown hair. A woman"s hair, Michael realized. It was naturally curly. Krolle grinned at Blok, then reached deeper into the box. This time he came up with thick, pale blond locks. "Ah, isn"t this one lovely!" Krolle asked. "This will make a grand wig, worth its weight in gold. I"m pleased to tell you our production is up thirty-seven percent. Not a trace of lice in the whole lot. The new delousing spray is a G.o.dsend."
"I"ll tell Dr. Hildebrand how well it works," Blok said. He looked into the box, reached down, and brought out a handful of gleaming coppery-colored hair. "Oh, that"s just magnificent!"
Michael watched the hair fall from Blok"s fingers. It caught the sunlight, and its beauty almost broke Michael"s heart. The hair of a woman prisoner, he thought. Where was her body? He caught a hint of the burned smell, and his stomach lurched.
These men-these monsters-could not be allowed to live. He would be d.a.m.ned by G.o.d if he knew these things and did not tear the throats out of the men who stood before him, smiling and talking about wigs and production schedules. The cargo bays of all three trucks were loaded with pine-wood boxes; loaded with hair, shaved off skulls like fleece off slaughtered lambs.
He could not let these men live.
He took a step forward, brushing past the rifle barrel. "Halt!" the soldier shouted. Krolle, Blok, and Boots turned to look at him, hair still drifting down into the box. "Halt!" the soldier commanded, and drove the barrel into Michael"s rib cage.
Such pain was nothing. Michael kept going, his wrists manacled behind him. He stared into the colorless eyes of Major Krolle, and he saw the man flinch and step backward. He felt the fangs aching to slide from his jaws, his facial muscles rippling to give them room.
"Halt, d.a.m.n you!" The soldier hit him on the back of the head with his rifle barrel, and Michael staggered but kept his balance. He was striding toward the three men, and Boots stepped between him and Colonel Blok. Another soldier, armed with a submachine gun, rushed at Michael and slammed him in the stomach with the gun b.u.t.t. Michael doubled over and gasped in pain, and the soldier lifted his weapon to strike him across the skull.
The prisoner struck first, bringing his naked knee up into the man"s groin with a force that lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing to the ground. An arm locked around Michael"s throat from behind, squeezing his windpipe. Another man drove a fist into his chest, making his heart stutter. "Hold him! Hold the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Krolle barked as Michael kept thrashing wildly. Krolle lifted the baton and brought it down on Michael"s shoulder. A second blow dropped him, and a third left him lying in the dust, his lungs rasping as pain throbbed through his blackening shoulder and bruised stomach. He hung on the edge of unconsciousness, fighting against the change. Black hair was about to burst from his pores; he could smell the wildness in his skin, taste its musky power in his mouth. If he changed here, lying in the dust, he would be cut open and examined by German knives. Every part of him-from organs to teeth-would be tagged and immersed in bottles full of formaldehyde to be studied by n.a.z.i doctors. He wanted to live, to kill these men, and so he battled against the change and forced it back down.
Perhaps a few black wolf hairs had emerged from his body-on his chest, the insides of his thighs, and his throat-but they rippled away so fast that no one noticed them, and even if one of the soldiers had seen, he would"ve thought his eyes were playing tricks. Michael lay on his belly, very close to pa.s.sing out. He heard Blok say, "Baron, I think you"re in for a very rough visit with us."
Soldiers grasped beneath Michael"s arms, pulled him up, and began to drag him through the dust as he fell into darkness.
6.
"Can you hear me?"
Someone speaking, from the far end of a tunnel. Whose voice?
"Baron? Can you hear me?"
Darkness upon darkness. Don"t answer! he thought. If you don"t answer, whoever"s speaking will go away and let you rest!
A light switched on. The light was very bright; Michael could see it through his eyelids. "He"s awake," he heard the voice say to someone else in the room. "You see how his pulse has increased? Oh, he knows we"re here, all right." It was Blok"s voice, he realized. A hand grasped his chin and shook his face. "Come on, come on. Open your eyes, Baron."
He wouldn"t. "Give him a drink of water," Blok said, and immediately a bucket of cold water was flung into Michael"s face.
He sputtered, his body involuntarily shivering with the chill, and his eyes opened. The light-a spot lamp of brutal wattage, drawn up close to his face-made him squeeze his eyelids shut again.
"Baron?" Blok said. "If you refuse to open your eyes, we"ll cut your eyelids off."
There was no doubt they would. He obeyed, squinting in the glare.
"Good! Now we can get some business done!" Blok pulled up a chair on casters beside the prisoner and sat down. Michael could make out others in the room: a tall man holding a dripping bucket, another figure-this one thick and fleshy-in a black SS uniform that bulged at the seams. Major Krolle, of course. "Before we begin," Blok said quietly, "I"ll tell you that you are a man whom hope has abandoned. There is no escape from this room. Beyond these walls, there are more walls." He leaned forward, into the light, and his silver teeth glittered. "You have no friends here, and no one is coming to save you. We are going to destroy you-either quickly, or slowly: that is the sole choice within your power to make. Do you understand? Nod, please."
Michael was busy trying to figure out how he was bound. He was lying, stark naked, on a metal table that was shaped like an X, his arms outstretched over his head and his legs apart. Tight leather straps secured his wrists and ankles. The table was tilted up and forward, so that Michael was very close to an upright position. He tested the straps; they wouldn"t give even a quarter of an inch.
"Bauman?" Blok said. "Bring me some more water, please." The man with the bucket-an aide to Major Krolle, Michael a.s.sumed-answered "Yes sir" and walked across the room. An iron bolt slid back, and there was a quick glimpse of gray light as a heavy door opened and closed. Blok turned his attention to the prisoner again. "What is your name and nationality?"
Michael was silent. His heart pounded; he was sure Blok could see it. His shoulder hurt like h.e.l.l, though it probably wasn"t fractured. He felt like a wrapping of bruises around a barbed-wire skeleton. Blok expected an answer, and Michael decided to give him one: "Richard Hamlet. I"m British."
"Oh, you"re British, are you? A Tommy who speaks perfect Russian? I don"t think so. If you"re so very British, say something in English for me."
He didn"t respond.
Blok sighed deeply, and shook his head. "I think I prefer you as a baron. All right, let"s say for the sake of speculation that you"re art agent for the Red Army. Probably dropped into Germany on an a.s.sa.s.sination or sabotage mission. Your contact was Chesna van Dorne. How and where did you meet her?"
Had they caught Chesna? Michael wondered. There was no answer to that question in the eyes of his inquisitor.
"What was your mission?" Blok asked.
Michael stared straight ahead, a pulse beating at his temple.
"Why did Chesna bring you to the Reichkronen?"
Still no response.
"How were you planning on getting out of the country after your mission was completed?" No answer. Blok leaned a little closer. "Have you ever heard of a man named Theo von Frankewitz?"
Michael kept his face emotionless.
"Von Frankewitz seemed to know you," Blok continued. "Oh, he tried to shield you at first, but we gave him some interesting drugs. Before he died, he told us the exact description of a man who visited him at his apartment. He told us he showed this man a drawing. The man he described is you, Baron. Now tell me, please: what interest would a Russian secret agent have in a decrepit sidewalk artist like Frankewitz?" He prodded Michael"s bruised shoulder with his forefinger. "Don"t think you"re being brave, Baron. You"re being very stupid. We can shoot you full of drugs to loosen your tongue, but unfortunately those don"t work very well unless you"re in... shall we say... a weakened condition. Therefore we must satisfy that requirement. It"s your choice, Baron: how shall we do this?"
Michael didn"t answer. He knew what was ahead, and he was readying himself for it.
"I see," Blok said. He stood up, and moved away from the prisoner. "Major Krolle? At your pleasure, please."
Krolle stalked forward, lifted the rubber baton, and went to work.
Sometime later, cold water was thrown into Michael"s face again and revived him to the devil"s kingdom. He coughed and sputtered, his nostrils clogged with blood. His right eye was swollen shut, and the entire right side of his face felt weighted with bruises. His lower lip was gashed open, leaking a thread of crimson that trickled down his chin to his chest.
"This really is pointless, Baron." Colonel Blok was sitting in his chair again, next to Michael. On a tray in front of him was a plate of sausages and sauerkraut and a crystal goblet of white wine. Blok had a napkin tucked in his collar and was eating his dinner with a silver knife and fork. "You know I can kill you anytime I please."
Michael snorted blood from his nostrils. His nose might be broken. His tongue found a loose molar.
"Major Krolle wants to kill you now and be done with it," Blok went on. He chewed a bite of sausage and dabbed his lips with the napkin. "I think you"ll come to your senses before very much longer. Where are you from, Baron? Moscow? Leningrad? What military district?"
"I"m..." His voice was a hoa.r.s.e croak. He tried again. "I"m a British citizen."
"Oh, don"t start that again!" Blok cautioned. He took a sip of wine. "Baron, who directed you to Theo von Frankewitz? Was it Chesna?"
Michael didn"t answer. His vision blurred in and out, his brains rattling from the beating.
"This is what I believe," the colonel said. "That Chesna was in the business of selling German military secrets. I don"t know how she learned about Frankewitz, but let"s speculate that she is involved in a network of traitors. She was helping you with your mission-whatever that was-and she decided to intrigue you with some information that she thought you might take back to your Russian masters. Dogs do have masters, don"t they? Well, perhaps Chesna thought you might pay for this information. Did you?"
No response. Michael stared past the blinding spot lamp.
"Chesna brought you to the Reichkronen to a.s.sa.s.sinate someone, didn"t she?" Blok cut a sausage open, and grease drooled out. "All those officers there... possibly you were going to blow the entire place to pieces. But tell me: why did you go into Sandler"s suite? You did kill his hawk, didn"t you?" When Michael didn"t answer, Blok smiled thinly. "No harm done. I despised that d.a.m.ned bird. But when I found all those feathers and that mess in Sandler"s suite, I knew it had to be your doing-especially after that little drama on the riverbank. I knew you must have had commando training, to have gotten off Sandler"s train. He"s hunted over a dozen men on that train, and some of them were ex-officers who"d fallen from grace; so you see, I knew no tulip-growing "baron" could have beaten Sandler. But he gave you a run, didn"t he?" He poked his knife at the blood-crusted bullet gash on Michael"s thigh. "Now, about Frankewitz: who else knows about the drawing he showed you?"
"You"ll have to ask Chesna," Michael said, probing to see if she"d been captured.
"Yes, I will. Count on it. But for right now, I"m asking you. Who else knows about that drawing?"
They didn"t have her, Michael thought. Or maybe it was just a faint hope. The security of that drawing was paramount to Blok. Blok finished his sausage and drank his wine, waiting for the Russian secret agent to answer. Finally he stood up and pushed his chair back. "Major Krolle?" he said, and motioned the man forward.
Krolle came out of the darkness. The rubber baton was upraised, and Michael"s bruised muscles tensed. He wasn"t ready for another beating yet; he had to stall for time. He said, "I know all about Iron Fist."
The baton started to fall, aimed at Michael"s face.
Before it could smash down, a hand grasped Krolle"s wrist and checked its descent. "One moment," Blok told him. The colonel stared fixedly at Michael. "A phrase," he said. "Two words you got out of Frankewitz. They meant nothing to him, and they mean nothing to you."
It was time for a shot in the dark. "The Allies might think differently."
There was a silence in the room, as if mere mention of the Allies had the power to freeze flesh and blood. Blok continued to stare at Michael, his face betraying no emotion. And then Blok spoke: "Major Krolle, would you leave the room, please? Bauman, you, too." He waited until the major and his aide had left, then began to walk back and forth across the stone floor, his hands behind him and his body crooked slightly forward. He suddenly stopped. "You"re bluffing. You don"t know a d.a.m.ned thing about Iron Fist."
"I know you"re in charge of security for the project," Michael said, choosing his words carefully. "I presume you didn"t take me to Gestapo headquarters in Berlin because you don"t want your superiors to find out there"s been a security leak."
"There has been no leak. Besides, I don"t know what project you"re talking about."