The Wolf's Hour (48 page)

The ravine ended, and yielded to forest once more. Amid the trees a stream snaked between mossy banks. A bend of the road lay ahead, and beneath it was a stone culvert through which the steam rushed, its opening all but clogged by mud and vegetation. Michael glanced back and saw soldiers emerging from the smoky ravine. Other figures were coming down the hillside, taking cover behind the trees. Chesna was already on her knees, starting to push herself into the muddy culvert. “Come on!” she urged him. “Hurry!”

It was a tight squeeze. And, looking at it, Michael knew he could never get himself and Mouse through there before the soldiers reached them. His decision was made in an instant; as Chesna lay on her stomach and winnowed into the culvert, Michael turned away and ran out of the stream bed into the woods. Chesna kept going, through the slime, and the mud and underbrush closed behind her.

A rifle bullet sliced a pine branch over Michael’s head. He zigzagged between the trees, until a smoke grenade exploded almost in front of him and turned him aside. These hunters, he thought grimly, knew their work. His lungs were laboring, his strength sweating away. He tore through a green thicket, the sunlight lying around him in golden bars. He struggled up a hillside and down again-and then his feet slipped on a carpet of dead brown leaves and he and Mouse slid into a tangled nightmare of blue-black thorns that snagged their clothes and flesh.

Michael thrashed to get loose. He saw soldiers coming, from all sides. He looked at Mouse, and saw blood creeping from the little man’s mouth.

“Please… please,” Mouse was gasping. “Please… don’t let them torture me…”

Michael got his hands free and pulled the Luger from his waistband. He shot the first soldier he aimed at, and the others hit the ground. His next two shots went wild through the trees but the fourth clanged off a Nazi helmet. Michael took aim at a white face and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened; the Luger’s magazine was empty.

Submachine-gun fire kicked through the thorns, showering Michael and Mouse with dirt. A voice shouted, “Don’t kill them, you idiots!” It was Jerek Blok, crouched somewhere up on the hillside. Then: “Throw out your gun, Baron! We’re all around you! One word from me and you’ll be cut to pieces!”

Michael felt dazed, his body on the verge of collapse. He looked again at Mouse, and damned himself for pulling his friend into this deadly vortex. Mouse’s eyes were pleading, and Michael recognized the eyes of Nikita, as the injured wolf lay on the railroad tracks a long, long time ago.

“I’m waiting, Baron!” Blok called.

“Don’t… let them torture me,” Mouse whispered. “I couldn’t stand it. I’d tell them everything, and I… wouldn’t be able to help it.” His thorn-scarred hand clutched at Michael’s arm, and a faint smile played across his mouth. “You know… I just realized… you never told me your real name.”

“It’s Michael.”

“Michael,” Mouse repeated. “Like the angel, huh?”

Perhaps a dark angel, Michael thought. An angel to whom killing was second nature. It occurred to him, quite suddenly, that a werewolf never died of old age; and neither would the man Michael had known as Mouse.

“Baron! Five seconds and we start shooting!”

The Gestapo would find a way to keep Mouse alive, Michael knew. They’d pump him full of drugs, and then they’d torture him to death. It would be an ugly way to die. Michael knew the same fate awaited him; but he was no stranger to pain, and if there was one chance that he might be able to get away and continue his mission, he had to take it.

So be it. Michael tossed the Luger out, and it clattered to the ground.

He put his hands to the sides of Mouse’s head and took the little man’s weight on top of him. Tears sprang to his eyes, burning trails down his thorn-scratched cheeks. An angel, he thought bitterly. Oh yes. A damned angel.

“Will you… take care of me?” Mouse asked softly, beginning to fall into delirium.

“Yes,” Michael answered. “I will.”

A moment later Blok’s voice again: “Crawl out into the open! Both of you!”

One figure emerged from the thorns. Dusty, bleeding, and exhausted, Michael lay on his hands and knees as six soldiers with rifles and submachine guns circled him. Blok came striding up, with Boots following. “Where’s the other one?” He looked into the thorns, could see the motionless body lying in the coils. “Get him out!” he told two of the soldiers, and they waded into the tangle. “On your feet,” Blok said to Michael. “Baron, did you hear me?”

Michael slowly stood up, and stared defiantly into Jerek Blok’s eyes.

“Where did the bitch go?” the colonel asked.

Michael didn’t answer. He flinched, listening to the sound of Mouse’s clothes ripping on the thorns as the soldiers dragged him out.

“Where did the bitch go?” Blok placed the barrel of his Luger underneath Michael’s left eye.

“Stop the bullshit,” Michael replied, speaking in Russian. He saw the blood drain out of Blok’s face. “You won’t kill me.”

“What did he say?” The colonel looked around for an interpreter. “That was Russian, wasn’t it? What did he say?”

“I said,” Michael continued in his native tongue, “that you suck donkey cocks and whistle out your ass.”

“What the hell did he say?” Blok demanded. He glared at Boots. “You spent time on the Russian Front! What did he say?”

“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 testicles. 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 bitch 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 Nazi; 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 God 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 luster. 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 Nazi 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 buttons 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 bitches 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 passed, 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 ass-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 godsend.”

“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 damned by God 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, damn 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 butt. 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 bastard!” 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 Nazi 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 passing 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.