Rhineland Inheritance (20 page)

The man remained mute.

“I thought so,” Jake said. “You're trapped, aren't you?”

“Almost as trapped as you, Captain,” Jurgen Konrad replied.

“I know where you could pick up some more partners fast,” Jake continued. “Partners who can run fast, dig for hours on end, even crawl in and out of upstairs windows without being caught.”

The gaze flickered. “You cannot be serious.”

“Partners you can trust,” Jake continued. “If they gave you their word, you could trust them with your very life. I would.”

“Then you are a very simple man, Captain.”

Jake shook his head. “I have worked with them. I have come to know them well.”

“As well as any human being can know an animal.”

“They are not animals,” Jake said sharply. “They are survivors. Their way of life has been shaped by events beyond their control. They have faced difficulties that should have killed them, and yet they survived.”

The German searched Jake's face and gave his head a slight shake. “This is so strange.”

“What is?”

“You really do care for these cellar children, don't you, Captain?”

“They are worthy of your trust. And they will help you.”

“Very well, Captain,” came the rasped reply. “I will think over your words.”

Jake nodded. “As to this other matter—”

“It exists,” Konrad insisted. “The treasure is there.”

“It's unlikely to be there for long,” Jake pointed out.

“I understand your concern,” Konrad replied. “But my demands must be met.”

“Perhaps others know of this treasure,” Jake pressed.

“Few ever knew of it,” Konrad whispered. “And even fewer still came through alive.”

“If one did, there may be others,” Jake went on. “Any moment now, the MPs may stumble upon someone ready to tell the tale.”

“Why are you speaking to me like this, Captain?” Konrad demanded. “You do not strike me as one who is greedy for treasure.”

“I want nothing for myself,” Jake asserted.

“Then why do you not simply agree to my demands and let us get on with it?”

“Because I do not have the authority,” Jake confessed. “And my superior officer is not here.”

“Contact him, then.”

“I have tried. I am trying. I cannot find him.”

“And this concerns you.”

“Very much,” Jake said grimly.

“You think others may be responsible for his disappearance?”

“I don't know what to think.”

Konrad sipped from his water jug, making loud swallowing sounds that were painful in Jake's ears. He set down the jug and breathed heavily, as though the effort of drinking had exhausted him. Then he said, “What is it you want?”

“I have promised to reward my young German helpers,” Jake said. “I need to take their payment from your hoard, to ensure that whatever happens they are properly compensated.”

“A man of his word,” the German said. “I was right to trust you, Captain.”

“The soldiers who are working on this project also have a right to expect something,” Jake continued.

“How much do you want?”

Jake thought it over and decided, “Everything we have taken from your attic and secured here.”

“Impossible.”

“You keep everything else.”

“And if I am unable to travel to France to collect the proceeds from what has already been sold? Or retrieve anything more for myself here? You see the condition the war has left me in. I would be signing my own death warrant.” Konrad shook his head. “The carpets, perhaps.”

“Not enough,” Jake replied. “A full chest. That is the least I need.”

Konrad thought for a moment, then asked, “What about my papers?”

Jake thought it over, and decided that if he was going out on a limb so far, he might as well start sawing away. “I will go down and have them issued immediately.”

“Also,” Konrad went on, “you must have my partners
released from your jails. Give me pen and paper so that I may write down their names.”

“I can ask,” Jake replied, fishing in his shirt pocket. “And I will. But I cannot order it. The officer in charge may be willing to do it as a special favor. But I can't promise anything.”

Konrad considered this. “You will do this immediately?”

“I will write the letters tonight,” Jake replied. “And send the couriers off at first light.”

The German inspected him carefully. “You are taking a risk, yes?”

“This entire episode will probably cost me my rank,” Jake replied soberly. “Maybe earn me a tour of duty behind bars.”

“Then why do you do this?”

“I have my reasons,” Jake said, rising to his feet. “When can I have your answer?”

“In the morning,” Konrad replied. “I shall think about your request and tell you my decision in the morning. Perhaps your colonel will have come back by then.”

“Perhaps,” Jake said, unconvinced.

“You think he has run away and left you with all the risks?”

“No,” Jake replied, definite for the first time that night. “Colonel Beecham is a good man.”

“He may be, Captain,” Konrad said, stretching out on his mattress. “But my trust lies in you. Good-night.”

Jake marched back downstairs, stopped by Sally's door, and asked, “Any word?”

“He seems to have vanished from the face of the earth,” Sally replied. She ran tired hands through her hair. “It's as if he had never even existed.”

“Go get some sleep,” he told her.

“What about you?” she responded. “You look ready to join the ranks of the walking wounded.”

“That was an order,” he said.

“Well, in that case—” She groaned her way to her feet, patting his arm as she passed on the way to the door. “Good-night, Commander.”

“I'm just a simple soldier,” Jake corrected.

“Not anymore,” she replied. “Try to get some rest, Jake. From the looks of things, tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

But when at last he was bedded down in the HQ's visiting officers' quarters, Jake found himself unable to calm his mind. As he rolled restlessly back and forth, he heard Pierre's voice calling softly through the darkness, “Are you asleep?”

“No.”

“Worried about the treasure?”

Jake shook his head, then realized that Pierre could not see him. “No.”

“What, then?”

“Sally,” he confessed.

“I suppose I should be jealous,” Pierre said. “I confess that I am not.”

“Girl back home?”

“There was, back when the war began. But I lost her.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Jake said, and recalled his own loss.

“When I think of her, which I try to do as seldom as possible, it is with great regret.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Yes, I believe you. Perhaps that is why I can speak with you, that and the cloak of darkness which surrounds us. It hides my shame from the world.”

“Shame over what?”

“It is said that some people are destined to love only once. I fear that I am not only such a man, but, I also loved the wrong woman. A lovely lady, truly beautiful. Half French, half Moroccan. But also treacherous. It still pains me deeply to think of her. Perhaps it always will.”

“I know it's hard to believe,” Jake said, and laced his fingers behind his head. “But you'll get over it. I did.”

Pierre was silent for a moment, then said, “I marvel at you sometimes, my friend.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you
care.
” Pierre's bed creaked as he shifted around. “You have seen the worst of war and still you are alive inside. How have you managed this?”

“I don't know that I have,” Jake replied quietly.

“You have, my friend. I see it in your eyes. I see it in the way you look at Sally. I see it when you are with the children. I have no doubts. None.”

“Sometimes,” Jake said slowly, “I remember . . . things.”

“Ah, yes. Things. I have memories like these as well.” The springs squeaked beneath Pierre as he raised himself up on one elbow. The white of his T-shirt and the dog tags hanging around his neck glinted in the faint light coming through their window. “I was seventeen when the Nazis invaded my country and made a laughingstock of the French army. I have never felt such helplessness as I did in those days, glued to the wireless, unable to do anything but cry and curse as Petain announced his capitulation to the Boche.”

“Where were you raised?” Jake asked.

“Montpellier. West of Marseille. I ran away from home four days later. I caught a freighter to Algiers with a hundred other boys, all of us fired by the rumor that De Gaulle was gathering an expeditionary force to return and liberate my country.”

“Did you have any brothers and sisters?”

“One brother. We were twins. He remained behind and joined the Underground. He was caught and shot in the last year of the war.” Pierre's voice turned bitter. “I languished in Algiers for two years. Two
years.
I watched my friends give in to the hopelessness and the drink and the emptiness of life. But I fought it, my friend. I fought the only way I knew how. By hating. I hated the life. I hated the heat. I hated the foul things these losers did to their minds and bodies. I hated the politicians and the generals for their endless bickering. And I hated the Boche most of all.”

“But you survived,” Jake reminded him. “Don't forget that.”

“Yes, it's true. But sometimes, Jake, when I look at you and see how you still care, I wonder if perhaps some part of me was destroyed by all that hating. My hatred is gone now. I lost it somewhere on the battlefield. It was burned up in the smoking ruins of another village whose name I don't recall. But nothing has come to take its place, Jake. Inside me now there is only emptiness.”

Jake thought of his own struggles. “The chaplain told me to find the answers in prayer.”

“Yes?” Pierre swung himself into a seated position. “And what do you think of that?”

“I don't know,” Jake confessed. “But maybe I'll give it a try.”

“But why, Jake? If you are not sure, how can you risk so much on the ramblings of a priest?”

“Because,” Jake said, choosing his words carefully, “every time I look inside myself or let myself care, what I feel most is pain.”

“Yes,” Pierre murmured. “This pain I know very well. Too well.”

Jake turned toward his unseen friend, an appeal in his voice. “I've got to try to find some way to be healed, Pierre. I've got to make this pain go away before I can start over.”

“And you truly think this pain
can
be healed?” Pierre demanded.

“I've got to try,” Jake repeated quietly.

Pierre slid back down, sighed, and said to the dark night, “Then perhaps I shall give this a try as well.”

Chapter Nineteen

“You have heard from your colonel?” Konrad demanded when Jake arrived the next morning.

“Not a word,” Jake replied, making no attempt to conceal his anxiety. He handed Konrad a steaming mug of coffee and sat down across the table from him. “The couriers have left for the border internment stations. I can't promise anything, but at least we are trying to have your partners released.”

The German sipped, making his painful swallowing effort, then rasped, “But I have agreed to nothing.”

Jake reached into his pocket and handed over a sheaf of folded papers. “Call it a sign of good will,” he said. “Your documents, as promised.”

With slow, deliberate motions, Konrad set down his cup and opened the papers. He looked at them for a long moment, then, without raising his head, said, “Very well, Captain. I agree.”

Jake leaned back, releasing a sigh. “That's it, then.”

The German pulled damaged facial muscles into the semblance of a smile. “No, Captain, that is where you are wrong. It is only the beginning.”

When he left Jurgen Konrad's chambers, Jake walked outside for a breath of air. Konrad's news had shaken him to the core. He stepped through the doors into brilliant winter sunlight. It took him a moment to focus. When he did, he found himself staring out over a field of green uniforms. All eyes were upon him.

Sergeant Morrows mounted the stairs. “I guess word got out, sir.”

Jake surveyed the throng. “Is anybody shirking their duty?”

“Not so far as I can tell,” Pierre replied from below. “I've checked with as many of the department chiefs as I can find.”

Jake raised his voice and said, “If anybody is out here expecting to go home rich, you might as well return to your barracks.”

No one moved.

“You know how the army works,” Jake continued in his parade-ground voice. “Maybe your great-grandchildren might get a penny on the dollar, but it's highly unlikely. If the treasure really is there—and we don't have any guarantee that it exists at all—the bigwigs will be quarreling over it from now 'til doomsday.”

The soldiers remained where they were. A voice from somewhere in the crowd called back, “We know that, sir.”

“You will all be searched thoroughly,” Jake persisted. “Don't think for a minute you'll be able to sneak something out.”

They remained a solid wall of fatigue green. “All right,” Jake relented. “Captain Servais and Sergeant Morrows will act as liaison. Everybody is dismissed. Platoon leaders, report to the squad room in fifteen minutes. Anybody caught shirking duty will be flailed alive—by me personally. Dismissed.”

Jake walked back inside the headquarters building and said to no one in particular, “Would somebody mind telling me what's going on?”

“It's very simple,” Sally replied, coming up beside him. “They know a leader when they see one.”