The 34th Degree

67

I t had taken several shots for Erin to shut up Stavros and prove her mettle. Now the brandy was having its way with her. With Doughty’s help, she had found her kaliva, or shepherd’s hut, then promptly collapsed onto her cot and fell asleep.

She dreamed she was back in the Gestapo cellars in Lyon. Cell number two. She was naked and cold and curled into a ball to keep warm. Her wrists and ankles were raw from the hand and leg chains that had held her for six days. She felt nauseated from the dank, suffocating stench of her own urine.

Looking down at her with his scornful smile was her interrogator, Standartenfuhrer Hoffer. He was a young man, about her age, with a powerful build and an arrogant face. Next to him stood a sergeant holding a camera and flashbulb. They were cataloging her like some specimen for experimentation.

“For the record, please,” Hoffer demanded. “State your name.”

“Joan of Arc.”

“I repeat,” he said sharply, “state your name, age, and rank.”

“Go to hell.”

He struck her across the face, and she could feel the skin beneath her cheekbone split open.

“Let the record state that the subject, age twenty-seven, is a captain in the Strategic Operations Executive, British Secret Intelligence Service. She is known to the French Resistance as Erin. Isn’t that so, Captain?”

She crouched there silently. The blood from the cut across her cheek was dribbling down her face. She rubbed her chin against her shoulder, smearing a streak across her collarbone.

“Isn’t that so, Captain?”

When she looked up, he started urinating in her face. She tried to move away, but he kicked her in the stomach with the toe of his jackboot. The pain seared through her insides, and she collapsed in her corner, retching like a run-over dog, coughing up blood.

“As you know, Captain Erin, you are being charged with espionage and acts of sabotage against the Third Reich,” Hoffer informed her. “Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, spies have no rights. Your existence is not even acknowledged by your own country. You will be hanged. You will be forgotten. But we will remember you for our own records. Sergeant.”

The sergeant readied his camera. Hoffer reached over and pulled her head up by her hair until she screamed. He turned her battered face toward the camera, and an explosion of light burst from the flashbulb. She blinked, and Hoffer let go of her hair. Her head fell to the floor.

“Sergeant, leave us,” said Hoffer. “Tell the others to join us in a few minutes.”

She heard the sergeant leave the cell and lock the door. She and Hoffer were alone. Perhaps she still had a chance to come out of this alive.

Hoffer said, “Tell me the other names in your network, and perhaps we can reach accommodations.”

She thought of the LaRoches, who had been hiding her and little Michelle. “I’m the network,” she said, and spat a ball of blood in Hoffer’s face.

He wiped the blood off his cheek, looked at his red fingertips, and cursed. “You little bitch.”

“Guess you’ll have to kill me, Frederick.”

Upon hearing his first name, uttered with such haunting familiarity, Hoffer suddenly went cold.

“That’s right,” she said. “I know you. You’re the son of Mark Hoffer, the Lutheran pastor.”

His eyes narrowed into slits, his pupils shifting to the right and the left, as if he were afraid they could be overheard. Then he grabbed her throat and started shaking her. “Is that what those British bastards told you?” he demanded. “It’s a lie!”

“Nobody told me, Frederick.”

After a few moments the pupils rested on her, and his eyes grew wide with recognition. “Oh my God,” he muttered in horror, taking his hands off her. “You’re Francis Whyte’s daughter!”

“I wasn’t sure you’d recognize me without my Sunday-school dress,” she said. “Then again, it was over ten years ago when your village church helped my father build his little school for Chinese peasants. We were just sixteen.”

Hoffer looked terrified, his eyes rolling like those of a fox caught in a snare. He started pacing the cell, clutching his head between his hands. “This isn’t happening!”

“Oh, yes it is,” she said. “Just look at me.”

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

She watched him with contempt, wondering how the handsome young man she had once admired from a distance could have become such a cowardly monster. A surprising number of former Protestants from independent churches-Lutherans, Presbyterians, Evangelicals-had joined the SS. That was because in the early ’30s, Hitler still carried a Bible with him during public speaking engagements and appealed to their love of country and hatred of the urban radicals, the Jews, the Communists. Most of all, unlike Catholics, these young Protestants professed no allegiance to the pope or any other spiritual or political leader outside Germany. By the time they had suspected Hitler’s secret agenda was to destroy Jews first and then the Church, these SS men had been brainwashed into professing faith not in the person of Jesus Christ but in an impersonal deity or destiny.

“How can you live with yourself?” she asked him.

He turned and glared at her, hatred filling his eyes. “We’re just two good soldiers who happen to be on opposite sides of the war, Captain.”

“What’s the good soldier going to do now?” she asked. “Hit me again? Spit on me? Beat me? Crucify me, Centurion?”

He pointed an unsteady finger at her. “We both know you’re no innocent victim,” he said. “You knew what you were in for when you signed up for this war.”

“So what’s your excuse?”

Hoffer opened his mouth to say something, but footsteps could be heard rumbling down the passageway. He stiffened with iron resolve and told her, “We all have our jobs to do.”

The cell door swung open. Six young SS men entered the cell. What stone they had crawled out from under, Erin could only guess. Their faces looked flushed from drink, and none of them seemed to be in his right senses. Their eyes flickered with hatred, their mouths twisted in perverse smiles.

“She won’t talk, gentlemen,” said Hoffer, assuming an impersonal air. “Perhaps you can persuade her.”

Erin had heard how the Gestapo broke female agents down: multiple rape. But until now she had refused to believe it. I won’t break down, she resolved, I won’t.

Even Hoffer couldn’t stomach what was about to happen. “I’ll return in thirty minutes,” he told the others. Careful to avoid looking at her, he walked out and closed the cell door.

She heard the key turn with a sickening click. There was a great cry, and the six guards rushed to her. She felt their hands crawling all over her, squeezing her, hurting her.

“Let’s take her for a ride!”

“I bet she hasn’t had a ride in years.”

“Take a number, men,” shouted the first one, a chunky, red-faced youth. “I get her first! The rest of you get what’s left.” He clutched her breast with his greasy, stubby fingers. She squirmed out of his grasp. “Where do you think you’re going?” He unbuckled his belt and slid it off. Coiling it like a whip, he shouted, “Come back here!”

She felt the cold buckle bite her back as he flogged her. She let out a cry and slithered toward a corner of her cell, trying to get away.

He whipped her in a frenzied fury. “I’ll beat you to death!”

“Stop it!” warned one. “You’ll kill her.”

She had reached the corner when she felt the cold hands grab her feet and drag her back. The first guard seized her shoulders and propped her up against the stone wall.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said, slamming the back of her head against the stone. “When I’m finished, my friends are going to rape your corpse!”

She felt him hard against her, trying to get in. She screamed in pain.

“What’s this?” he shouted, trying to part her thighs, but her ankles strained at the ends of the chains. “Unlock her leg chains! Hurry up!”

She felt the chains loosen and slip off. Then came two quick kicks to spread her legs. Before she could respond, she felt a searing pain as he thrust himself into her. She gasped in agony and stared into his crazed eyes. His sweaty face dripped, and his tongue flicked across his wet lips. He crushed his mouth onto hers.

“Save some for us!” cried the others.

“There’s plenty to go around,” the first one yelled. “Isn’t there, bitch?”

The laughter in the cell was deafening, and the crude brute on top of her thrust deeper, harder, as if he could drill through her to the wall.

“My turn! My turn!” shouted another, aroused simply by watching her.

“She’s all yours.” The first one pushed himself away from her. “Take your turn, she’ll take you all for a ride.”

There was an outbreak of laughter, and she felt a dozen hands converge on her at once. She made a feeble attempt to ward them off, but they all collapsed on her, pinning her to the floor.

It was feeding time at the zoo.

Two of them pinned her legs down; a third sat on her face. The others took turns entering her, howling in laughter, shouting some crude song.

“Who are your friends, bitch?” they chanted. “Give us their names.”

“No!” she screamed.

The leader grabbed her throat and started choking her while the others struck her face. “Give us their names, bitch!”

The blows to her head began to take their toll. Her mind began playing tricks on her. She thought she could see her father standing in the corner by the cell door. His face was sad, and tears were in his eyes. His hands were at his side as he stood there, watching.

“Father!” she cried out. “What are they doing? Oh, God, help me!”

Her father held his hands open, and she could see the holes in his wrists. “They know not what they do,” he seemed to be telling her, then dissolved away.

“Don’t leave me here!” she cried. “Don’t go!”

But the image was gone, and she was barely conscious, numb from the pain, suffering one blow after another.

“Give us a name, bitch!” demanded their leader.

She started choking, gasping for breath.

“Give us a goddamn name!”

She couldn’t hold out any longer. She couldn’t stand the pain.

“LaRoche,” she wheezed. “The LaRoche family hid me.”

“Joseph LaRoche? That miserable little theater producer?”

She nodded.

“Excellent.” With a deep laugh, he let go of her neck.

Her body fell limp on the floor of the cell. She looked up to see him wipe his hand across his smiling mouth.

Oh my God, she thought, they broke me. “What are you going to do to him?” she asked desperately.

“Nothing.” He laughed. “It’s what we’ll do to that little girl of his that will make him talk.”

Not little Michelle, she thought. What have I done? Dear God, don’t let them get their hands on her! She had resolved not to break down. But those bastards had beaten her into submission, and God had abandoned her.

“It’s about time we made Michelle a woman,” said the leader. “This one’s all used up and good for nothing. Aren’t you, bitch?” He kicked her in the side.

She heard a crack and then another-two ribs gone. “God help me,” she cried out, “I’ll kill you all if you bastards touch that little girl!”

There was an explosion of laughter. “That’s going to be a little difficult, considering where you’re going.” They all started kicking her, chanting, “Beat the bitch! Beat the bitch! Beat the bitch!”

Each blow unleashed a fury inside her until something finally snapped. She was furious at God for letting this happen to her and terrified to think that Michelle was next. She had to save her, because nobody else would. She had to survive if only to see these bastards dead and save poor Michelle.

“Good-bye, bitch!”

She was on her last gasp when she managed to free a leg and kick one of the guards in the groin. He moaned in pain and collapsed to the floor.

“You need to learn some manners!” said the leader, and brought down his belt with a swinging blow.

But she blocked it with her cuffed hands, grabbed it, and pulled him down on her knee. He groaned in pain. She brought the cuffs crashing down on his skull so hard that everybody could hear the sickening crack. She pushed him off her until he rolled across the floor, a halo of blood forming around his head. She picked herself up and got on her feet.

There was a stunned silence as the four standing guards stared at the corpse.

“You killed him!” someone said.

Another said, “She’s hard as nails!”

“I’ll break her in two!” One of them came forward, swinging wildly at her.

She ducked, turned, and drove her knee into his testicles. The blow brought his head forward and down, and she followed by delivering a chin jab full force, using the weight of her body to drive the heel of her hand up into his chin, spreading her fingers so as to reach his eyes. She dug them deep into the sockets, and he cried out in pain. Then she pulled his skull forward and drove it into her knee again, knocking him unconscious and dropping him to the floor.

The remaining three guards closed in on her.

She felt a terrific pain as one of them seized her by the hair from behind and pulled her head back. In one rapid and continuous motion, she grabbed his wrist and arm with a firm grip and swiveled into him, twisting his arm.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

She stepped backward as far as possible with her right foot, jerked his hand from her head, and twisted it down and back between her legs. This sent him headfirst toward the ground.

“Stop her! She’s breaking my arm!”

One of the two remaining guards moved in to help. Keeping a firm grip on her captive’s wrist and arm, she followed up with a smashing kick to his face, sending him into his friend’s arms with enough force to make them both stumble backward and crash both heads against the wall. They dropped to the floor, unconscious.

The last guard came forward, fury in his bloodshot eyes. She stepped out of his reach, wrapped her chains around his neck, and pulled as hard as she could. For a wild moment he spun in circles, practically carrying her on his back as he tried to pry the chain loose, choking desperately. He slammed her against the wall, but she wouldn’t let go. Finally, he dropped to the floor.

Breathing hard, feeling dizzy, she looked around at the bodies strewn across the cell. She threw up. Doubled over, she could see blood dripping down the insides of her thighs, and the horrible pain between her legs made her fall to her knees.

There was no time for pain, she told herself. In a few minutes Frederick would be back.

She dragged herself over to the guard who had unlocked her leg chains and found the key. With a little work, she managed to unlock the wrist chains. As she rubbed her sore wrists, she heard a soft groan. She looked over to see a semiconscious guard starting to stir.

Oh, God, she thought, it wasn’t over. Not as long as they knew about the LaRoche family. She would have to make sure they were all dead. If only she hadn’t broken…

She found a half-empty bottle of beer on the floor, smashed it, and picked the most useful shard of glass. Crawling on all fours, she approached the semiconscious guard and slit his throat. The moaning stopped instantly.

She proceeded to move from one unconscious guard to another, slitting their throats, even the one whose skull she had crushed and the one she had strangled. She couldn’t afford to have one of them wake up on this side of death. She didn’t want to think about what they would find on the other side.

When she was finished, she found a guard who looked about her size. She stripped off his uniform and put it on. She slipped her swollen feet into the oversize jackboots, snatched a cap, and stood up, leaning against the wall to keep her balance. She rolled her hair up into a ball and put the cap on.

She waited by the door, drawing deep breaths, waiting for Frederick to return. He would open the door and see the bodies strewn across the floor. That moment of confusion would be her chance. She would kill him. She would snap the neck of Frederick Hoffer, a preacher’s kid like her, and she would feel no remorse. Then she would kill the sentry at the back door and stumble into the misty night.

A few minutes later, she heard the echo of Hoffer’s steps coming down the hallway. The key hit the lock, and she held her breath. The door opened, and a hulking figure entered the cell and turned toward her. But it wasn’t Hoffer.

It was Stavros.

She woke up, gasping for breath, wet strands of hair plastered across her face. She sat up in terror.

It was early morning, still dark, and she realized she was in her hut at the National Bands camp in the middle of nowhere, drawing deep breaths. It was only a dream-this time.

But it had happened for real once before. That meant it could happen again.