Blood of the Reich

50

Wewelsburg, Germany

October 3, Present Day

R ominy and Sam were marched down stairs even deeper than the tower crypt to the Hexenkeller, the witches’ cellar, and shoved inside a whitewashed stone cell by Otto. The room was barren and cold.

“You’ll be leaving in the morning,” the skinhead Nazi said to Rominy. “See that you get some rest.”

“What about Sam?” Her friend was leaning painfully against one wall.

“We don’t need him anymore.” A two-inch-thick heavy oak door slammed shut. They heard a bar drop over it.

The only ventilation was a tiny grilled window in the thick castle wall, too high to reach and too narrow to crawl through. There were two mattresses on the floor with woolen military blankets.

Sam sat down heavily on one, groaning. It crackled. “Straw. Welcome to the Middle Ages.” There was a single lightbulb in a protective cage high overhead and no switch they could see to turn it off. A bucket was apparently supposed to serve as a toilet. There was no water and no privacy. “I’ll never complain about Motel Six again.”

Rominy kneeled by him. “Are you all right, Sam?”

“No, I’m not all right, Rominy. I’ve been shot in the chest, forced to walk out of the wilderness, and clubbed in the kidneys. And don’t get me started about the leg room and in-flight meal on the airline.”

“I’m a disaster for everyone who comes into contact with me. Poor Mrs. Clarkson.”

“Mrs. Clarkson apparently never came into contact with you at all. Don’t blame yourself for what these lunatic murderers have been up to. We’re victims of madmen, led by a guy who looks like he climbed out of a coffin. If a bat flies through that little window, I’m giving up.” He shifted and groaned.

“That couldn’t be Kurt Raeder. He’d be over a hundred years old.”

“Doesn’t look a day over ninety-nine.”

“Did something happen to make him live this long?”

“Who knows? These may just be inmates from the local asylum. Next up will be a guy with a Charlie Chaplin mustache giving a Hitler salute, and another with a bicorne hat and his hand tucked into his waistcoat. At least we were right about the atom smasher. They’ve been waiting for it to go to full power.”

“How are they going to make use of it? It’s a big international science project.”

“I have a feeling these Nazis aren’t going to ask permission.” He looked at the door. “And apparently we don’t get a vote. So what now?”

She sat next to him, having no idea. But the worst choice would be surrender. “I think we’d better starting acting and not reacting. I think we’d better make some plans.”

T he cell light never went out, and they dozed as best they could on the thin, scratchy mattresses. There was no heat, and the temperature hovered somewhere between barely tolerable and freezing. Rominy crawled to Sam’s mattress and curled inside him as she’d done in the wilderness of Tibet. There was a comfort to it more profound than anything she’d felt with Jake. Sam put his arm around her and actually managed to doze while she thought fretfully. He groaned sometimes in his sleep.

So the thinnest light from a gray dawn was just penetrating their distant window when he abruptly sat up.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“I hurt.”

“Sam, I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. It woke me up enough to think. Rominy, they’re going to take you somewhere, maybe the collider-I don’t know why-and kill me. It’s the only thing that makes sense. So the only thing that makes sense to me is to get clear of these thugs and come after you. So that’s what I have to do.”

“Just save yourself.” Her tone was hopeless.

“No, that’s what people like this count on-their enemies just trying to save themselves, and being picked off one by one. Do you know what a fascist is?”

“Like a Nazi. Extreme right-wing.”

“The term came from Mussolini in Italy. And he got it from the Romans. In ceremonies, Roman leaders would carry a bundle of sticks called fasces. It symbolized the strength that comes from sticking together. Any one of the sticks could be broken, but if bundled in a bunch they were unbreakable. The Gauls or the Germans might have the biggest warriors, but when they ran into the bundled power of a Roman legion, pow! The barbarians lost. Mussolini liked this idea and called his followers fascists.”

How do guys carry so much trivia around? “So?”

“So we’ve got to become fascists, too. Work together.” He rubbed his hands. “I’m going to save you, Rominy.”

“That’s very sweet, but you’re not a Roman.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a crush on you.”

“Sam…” She didn’t want to start something she’d quickly lose.

“You can’t help it. You’re cute. It’s just biology, forget about it. But I’ve got an idea for a weapon and an idea of where you’re going: that atom smasher. When you get there, you’ve got to figure out some way to let me know exactly where you are.”

“And then what?”

His smile was a tight white line in the gloom. “We avenge your family.”

U rsula Kalb came for Rominy soon after dawn, dressed in a business suit and stylish pumps. She looked like a corporate vice president. “Come. The construction workers will arrive soon and we must be out of here by then. Their boss is a believer and gives us good cover, but not all his men know about us.”

Rominy remained sitting on the mattress. “I’m not going without Sam.”

“That is not your choice.”

“Then I’m not going.”

Kalb struck like a snake. The woman stepped forward and jerked Rominy up with surprising strength and slapped her, shockingly hard and blindingly fast, once, twice, across the face. The blows knocked her head sideways and her eyes spurted tears. “You think I am a patient person, like our Fuhrer, Kurt Raeder? You come or I sic a real dog on you, not those mutts you saw in America. Come!”

“Leave her alone!”

The German dragged Rominy to the door. “Otto is coming for you,” she said to Sam.

The guide was rubbing his lower back and eyeing Frau Kalb with malice, but the German kept Rominy between her and Mackenzie, her nose wrinkled as she held the young woman. “Little pig. A shower first and then we go.”

“Sam!” Her hands were outstretched but he hung back.

“Good-bye, Rominy.” He said it with resignation, the farewell of a doomed man. They had rehearsed this.

“Wait!” She tried to yank away from Kalb but the woman’s grip held her like a manacle.

“Remember what I told you,” Sam said flatly.

“Please don’t hurt him!” And then they were out of the cell and the door slammed shut.

F or half an hour Sam heard little. Then there was the faint sound of doors slamming, a car starting, and tires crunching on gravel. Quiet. He was thirsty and hungry, but he was betting they wouldn’t just leave him to rot. Otto would want to have some fun. He stretched and loosened, trying to get ready. He trembled from anticipation. Fear was good. Fear made him ready.

He heard the faint sound of electric saws and pounding hammers. The construction crew had arrived. Finally there was the tread of boots coming down the stairs outside and then the scrape of the bar being lifted. The door opened to reveal Otto, not in a suit this time but in loose combat pants tucked into his army boots. He wore a black turtleneck and bomber jacket.

“Now we play, yes?” He smirked.

“You’re a skinhead goon, Otto. Don’t you need to wait until my back is turned?”

The Nazi shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not for you. You look like a pussy man. You know that word? Look, I have no weapon. Bare hands, like you. Maybe you can teach me a lesson. I’ve been a very bad boy.” The skinhead took a step in and closed the door. “So the workers aren’t disturbed, yes?”

Sam braced, balling his hands and putting them up. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Otto sneered. “You sleep with your woman?”

“No.”

“I will rape her when this is over, I think. Maybe she will be a screamer.” His own hands went up, opened, to chop. “But I can make the girls promise not to tell.” He smiled evilly, imagining it. Then he weaved slightly like a boxer, as he advanced into the cell.

Sam swallowed, his eyes flickering with fear, his voice quavering with false bravado. “Where did it go wrong, Otto? Bad parents? Wrong crowd? Bullied at school?”

“I just like to hurt things.” The German jabbed.

Sam ducked to one side, but the punch was just a feint. Otto’s boot swung up, a wicked arc that swung across the cell and kicked the American in the side. Mackenzie gave a bark of pain and went over, landing on his mattress. “Ow!” he cried. He groaned, holding himself. “Oh, fuck!”

“Get up. I want to kick you again.”

Sam crawled toward a corner of the cell, gasping. “Leave me alone!”

So the German came after him, grasping his shirt to haul him upright. “No. I think we play some more.”

Sam raised his hands to cover his face, fists clenched. He was sobbing. Otto felt revulsion. The American was a woman! The German spat at him, to try to get a reaction. Sam just cringed. It was like beating dead meat.

Mackenzie reached to clutch at his captor. “Please, please…”

This was so pathetic, it wasn’t even fun.

Otto decided he would bounce Sam’s head against the stonework. He would bounce it and bounce it, and count how many times it took to crack.

And then the German felt the most excruciating pain of his life. Sam’s fist suddenly slapped the side of the Nazi’s head and it was as if someone had inserted a hot needle into his ear. Something sharp and wicked rammed, piercing the ear canal and driving deep into his skull. My God, he could feel it sliding in like the mandible of an insect, as if burrowing from one side of his head to the other! The agony was electric, unbelievable, explosive. What had the bastard done? Did he have a knife or pick?

The German opened his mouth to scream.

Then Sam’s other fist plunged something into his right eye.

It pierced through Otto’s eyeball. The pain was like fire. Blood spurted from his socket. He was paralyzed with horror, too shocked for a moment to react.

The delay was catastrophic.

Because then the other eye was blinded by another excruciating splinter and Otto exploded backward, launching himself off his unexpected tormentor and crashing back against the door of the cell. He clawed at his face, shrieking, boots scrabbling. There were sticks in his eyes! He was blind! Where had the American gotten them? His back arched in agony. He slid to the floor.

A boot came down on the Nazi’s nose and it broke, exploding, and then on his teeth. They cracked. Otto couldn’t react, his muscles wouldn’t obey, because the pain was like an electrocution. He was accustomed to hurting, not being hurt. Then he dimly felt hands clawing at his turtleneck, hauling the collar down. And something very thin and very sharp sliced deep, very deep, into his neck. His jugular geysered.

When he opened his mouth to scream no sound came out.

S am sat back, wheezing. He was sprayed with blood. Otto’s corpse was frozen in a spasm of pain, back arched, boots twitching, crimson spurting from his neck until it stopped like a depleted gusher. Oh, Lord. He’d just killed a man, and in the most brutal way possible. He hadn’t been sure it would work. The anger had been easy to summon, but to actually do it!

He surveyed his handiwork. His makeshift weapons jutted from ear, eyes, and throat. Fasces.

Sam knew it was unlikely he could beat Otto in a fistfight. He was already half-crippled from the earlier beating and had no martial arts training. So he’d pondered some advantage or weapon he could obtain. Then the word fascist had popped into his head and he’d remembered where it came from.

What did he have to work with in this bare cell?

Straw. The only thing they had in their lousy mattress.

It was stiff and prickly but weak, if each stalk was taken alone. But a bundle, carefully shaped like a sharpened pencil and reinforced with more straw wrapped around its shaft, became a crude stiletto if rammed into something vulnerable. Sam had fashioned four of them, each with the strength of a quill, and practiced hiding them in his fists and sleeves. Then he’d pondered how he could get Otto close enough to use them.

By playing coward.

Now the arrogant skinhead was dead. And the weird thing was, it didn’t feel completely horrible. It felt good.

Shakily, Sam stood. He felt like he’d just been pummeled in a football game, but he was breathing and Otto wasn’t. He spat at the man for good measure. Rape Rominy? I don’t think so, Nazi shit.

Shuddering with release, he cracked open the door. What if more of them were out there?

Then you’re already dead, Sam, no different from five minutes ago. One step at a time, man.

But the hall was empty. He stepped out. Otto had left a pistol, a menacing black one, on a bench. Probably to make things “fair.” How thoughtful, skinhead. Above, he could hear the bang and clump of the construction workers.

Which meant there must be vehicles out there.

Sam crept up the stairs and turned to the gate that led to the crypt. Then across the basement room and out the rear door to the dry moat. If anyone saw him he’d look like some lunatic jihadist with his blood and pistol, but, no, it was still very early and the worker guys were all inside.

A plumbing van had keys.

So he drove carefully through the village, parked the vehicle behind a shed, and retrieved his BMW. He popped the trunk. Their belongings were still inside, including passports and Rominy’s remaining cash. Slowly, not wanting any attention from police, he drove out of Wewelsburg.

In a stand of trees by the river he stopped to wash, rinsing his clothes as best he could and putting them back on wet. He’d crank up the Beamer heater. He had a little cash, a pistol, and their hunch about where Kurt Raeder and Jake Barrow, or Jakob, were going. He had a young woman who didn’t deserve any of this. And he had, just maybe, a world to save.

Sam Mackenzie, necessary. Who woulda thunk it?