Dry Bones (11 page)

“After we’d driven a while, he added in a bragging way that he’d been entrusted with a ‘special mission of a sanitary nature.’ He jerked his thumb toward the trunk. ‘Back there,’ he said, ‘I’m carrying Passover presents for the Jews.’

“‘What kind of presents?’ I asked.

“‘Gas canisters—a crate full.’

“‘Disinfectant?’

“He winked. ‘This gas exterminates vermin and rodents of all types—two-legged as well as four-.’

“I soon learned firsthand what he was hinting at, and believe me, the partisans would love nothing more than to acquire what I’ve amassed so they can pass it to the Soviets. Think how useful it would be to Moscow to have a detailed list of the major criminals and their accomplices in the treatment of the Jews, and then to decide who to prosecute and liquidate, and who to intimidate and turn to their purposes. As long as I’m in their reach, they are content to wait for me to hand it over.”

“Are you holed up alone?” Van Hull asked.

“‘Held up alone’? I don’t know what you mean.”

“
Holed up.
Are you living by yourself?”

“Yes, but as soon as we get to my quarters, I’ll alert the underground, and we’ll move fast to get this operation under way.” Schaefer veered back onto the highway. He drove at an inconspicuous speed, almost as if they were out for a Sunday drive.

An exhaust-spewing civilian truck
whooshed
past in the opposite direction. Dunne sighed loudly and opened his eyes. “How much longer?”

“I thought we’d lost you to the arms of Morpheus.” Schaefer peered at Dunne in the mirror with a concerned expression. “No wonder with all you’ve been through. We’re ten minutes away at most. I’ve plenty of painkillers. I’ll see to that ankle myself.”

“Afraid I can’t wait.”

“For what?”

“Victor. He’s got to leave and won’t take no for an answer.”

“Victor?” Schaefer’s concern gave way to confusion. “Victor who?”

“You certain you can’t wait, Fin?” Van Hull asked.

“Victor is even more certain.”

Van Hull pointed at the roadside. “Pull over far as you can.”

Schaefer did as told. “Who is this Victor?”

“The LP.
Tödlich pille.
He swallowed one a few hours ago but didn’t bite it.”

“Ach, that. I’ll get him another. If he tries to reuse the one he took, he could die whether he bites it or not. Most of the covering is probably worn away.”

Dunne opened the car door. “Do it in here or out there, that’s the choice.”

“We’ll be quick.” Van Hull got out, lifted Dunne’s makeshift crutch from the back seat and helped him stand. Van Hull at his side, Dunne hobbled into the woods. “Is there anything in the
Boy Scout Handbook
about taking a dump on one leg?”

“Whatever works best is the Boy Scout way.”

Dunne undid his belt and dropped his pants and underwear. “That’s what I most remember about basic training in the last war.”

“What?”

“The instructors never got around to teaching how to take a shit in a rifle pit two feet deep with German snipers ready to blow your head off. Turned out to be among the most valuable lessons there was.” Dunne squatted on a large log, rear extending past, and gripped the sapling in front. “Which way with Schaefer?”

Van Hull looked into the distance. “That’s the reason you had him stop, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“To decide whether we go any farther or not.”

“If this is a trap, we’re only getting in deeper.”

“Maybe it’s not.”

“Maybe I’m Mrs. Roosevelt.”

“You think he’s an SS plant?”

“He’s as phony as a chocolate cigar.”

“Then why’d he tell us where Jahn is?”

“Because he knows desperate men will latch on to anything that gives them hope. Who knows that better than the SS? The
whole way he shows up in the one car we’ve probably heard him connected with. ‘This is almost too good to be true’—that’s the one truthful thing he said.” Dunne grunted. “Here it comes.”

“Shit.”

“What’d you expect?”

“No, I mean where’s that leave us?”

“Don’t suppose you brought along any toilet paper?”

“I’ll buy you a roll when we get home. That’s a promise.”

“No need. I’ve something as good.” Dunne lifted the leather fold from the breast pocket of his jump jacket. He extracted the operational map they’d each been given. “I knew it would come in handy.”

“For Chrissake, you still might need that.”

“This is the best use it’s had so far. Besides, you’ve got a copy, and if I lose you, all I need is Victor.” As he unfolded the map, a piece of newspaper fluttered to the ground. “Give me that, will you? That’s what I was looking for.”

Van Hull picked it up and handed it to Dunne, who began to read. He glanced over Dunne’s shoulder at the
Pharmaceutical News
piece Bassante had included in the briefing books. “Come on, Fin, it’s a little late to catch up on your homework.”

Dunne shrugged. “Maybe not.”

“You asked for toilet paper, not reading material.”

“Sometimes they’re the same thing.” Dunne focused on the paper, almost as if he were trying to commit it to memory, then threw it away. He used the map to wipe himself. Van Hull helped him to stand and pull up his pants.

Schaefer motioned for them to hurry.

Van Hull waved back. “If he’s who you think he is, why didn’t the SS spring the trap when he picked us up? Why don’t they do it now? Why this elaborate delay?”

“They’ll move at their convenience, not ours. Our ersatz Dr. Schaefer probably thinks he can use us to contact Bari and lure in
a far larger party of would-be rescuers.” Dunne grasped his crutch, poked at the solid cone of excrement behind the log, uncovered a yellow capsule, and flicked it loose. “Get that for me, will you, Dick?”

“Wish I were as certain as you.” Van Hull bent down, pinched the capsule between thumb and forefinger, and dropped it in the pocket of Dunne’s jacket. “
Bon appétit.
”

“‘Shoot the fucker before the fucker shoots you,’ as Yeats put it.”

“Yeats?”

“From his early stuff. An unpublished poem, I think.” Dunne gave the gun to Van Hull. “If it comes to it, fire.”

“How will I know?”

“Remember what Bassante said?”

“He said a lot of things.”

“‘Simplest and most necessary of all: Pay attention.’”

After helping Dunne settle in his seat, Van Hull got in the front.

“The longer we’re on these roads, the more dangerous it is.” Schaefer surveyed the highway in the rearview mirror. “Well, for now, at least, it’s clear.”

“Oh, one thing.” Dunne’s eyes met Schaefer’s in the mirror. “A good friend of yours in Bari said if we made contact, we must say hello.”

“Who’s that?”

“Epione.”

“Epione? I’m not sure I remember such a person. Can you describe him?”

Van Hull bolted to attention in his seat. “Epione’s a she.”

“And she said she knew me?”

“Very well,” Van Hull said. “She’s Asclepius’s daughter.”

“Asclepius’s daughter?” The face in the mirror suddenly blossomed with an awkward, open-mouthed smile of perfectly aligned
teeth; eyes skittered right to left, back again. “This is a joke, yes?”

“Epione is the goddess of pain relief. You must remember her from when the dentist twisted the wire to close the gap between your front teeth.”

“So much has happened, it is hard to remember everything and everybody.” The slow, steady tilt of Schaefer’s body was subtle but unmistakable. His hand slipped around the Luger hidden in the pouch on the side of his seat.

Dunne was about to lunge forward when Van Hull shot Schaefer through the neck, percussive roar deafening as an artillery round. Exiting bullet shattered the driver’s window. Smoke and silence filled the car. A thirteenth way to win people to your way of thinking—more direct than anything Dale Carnegie recommended. And more convincing.

They sat motionless in the postblast silence following Van Hull’s shot through the neck of ersatz Dr. Schaefer. His body slumped over the steering wheel. Gun smoke trailed out the window shattered by the same bullet that had splattered blood and spinal fluid across the back of the seat.

Dunne wiped a globule from his lips, licked them clean. Salty, repellent taste slipped down his throat. He lay back. Same gray velour cushioned ceiling as seat. They should be in a hurry. But where? He patted his breast pocket. Here was what was left of luck. He touched Victor’s small, reassuring bulge.
Totiusque.

The sky was as gray as the seat and velour ceiling, gray everywhere, up and down, soft as a blanket, noiseless, restful, full of sleep.

Van Hull reached back, bunched Dunne’s collar in his fist, pulled him upright, and struck his cheek, more pat than slap. “Fin, save the nap for later.”

He handed Dunne the gun, hopped out of the car, went to the driver’s side, opened the door, and laid the dead body on the
ground. He removed the overcoat and jacket, took his knife, sliced open the left side of the shirt, and lifted up the arm. “His SS blood group is tattooed right where it should be.” He dropped the arm. “We were being set up to get another mission flown in.” He picked up the overcoat and put it on.

The interior of the car grew cold. Dunne gulped the freezing air. It didn’t diminish the accumulated sense of exhaustion he felt. A clatter from behind startled him. Van Hull had the trunk opened. He held aloft a metal disk and tore off the wires attached. He hurled it toward the road and hurried around to the driver’s seat. “They’re tracking us. At least they
were
.”

He put the car in gear. “They say the Tatra 77 is one of the best cars on the road. Now we’ll see how it does
off
the road.” He drove into the woods. Branches whipped the windows. They jolted and bounced over uneven terrain, plunged into a shallow ditch, shot up a hillock that lofted them over a rift. The car shuddered violently when it landed. The bolt of pain in Dunne’s ankle made him cry out: “Where the hell are you going?”

The car zigzagged around trees, veered and swerved through a clearing, and fishtailed across a patch of ice. It barreled through a narrow defile and sideswiped an outcropping of rock that made the fender grind against the front right tire. Van Hull got out and pried the fender back into position.

Dunne tapped him on the shoulder when he retook the driver’s seat. “We’ve got nowhere to go, but it seems like we’re in a hell of a hurry to get there.”

“We’ve got a train to catch.”

“A train?”

“That village we passed. There were four boxcars. It’s a switching station. North-south tracks cross east-west tracks. We’ll drive far as we can and walk if we have to.”

“They aren’t going anywhere without an engine.”

“Sooner or later, one will show.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can’t. But it’s the only shot we’ve got.” Van Hull drove for several minutes before the thickness of the woods and a steep ridge made it impossible to proceed. “I’m going to do some scouting. You have to try to stay awake.” He returned so quickly Dunne didn’t have a chance to nod off. “There’s no way to drive any farther,” he said. “Terrain’s too rough. It’s back to shank’s mare.”

Dunne wasn’t sure he’d be able to last longer than a few minutes, but exhaustion served as analgesia, numbing counterweight to ache in ankle and discomfort of crutch rubbing against armpit. At times, he wasn’t sure he was even awake. Van Hull’s support and strength propelled them forward.

They reached an icy, half-frozen but flowing stream. Van Hull carried Dunne on his back across knee-high rapids. They rested on the far bank. Van Hull examined a cluster of birch trees, sliced off several mushroom-like growths, and pocketed them.

Dunne got on his hands and knees, removed his woolen cap, and plunged his head beneath the frigid, crystal-colored rush. He kept it there till he couldn’t stand the stinging, unsparing cold. He rolled on his back, gasping.

Supported by his elbows, Van Hull lay back, watching. “I was afraid you were trying to drown yourself.”

“I was. But I was afraid I’d freeze to death first. Give me a hand.”

“I wanted to go alone. I told the general that.”

“We do what we’re told, like all soldiers.” Dunne dried his head with his jacket and put his cap back on. He felt awake and alert. “We better get someplace warm or we’ll both get pneumonia.”

“The SS has had Mike Jahn and his men all the time.”

“No money-back guarantees. We knew that when we signed on.” Dunne slung his arm around Van Hull’s shoulder. He wanted to ask about Jahn but didn’t. Maybe it was different with other agents. In fact, he knew it was. But he also knew that Van Hull and
he operated according to the same unwritten code of conduct: Rely on each other for everything, yet know very little outside the mutual, immediate, primitive dependence required to stay alive. Knowing anything more was unnecessary, could only be confusing. When it was over—if you got out alive—you resume different lives, forever grateful to each other but gone your separate ways.

They reached the village in late afternoon. It was as quiet and unpopulated as when they’d driven past. Maybe all the inhabitants had fled, or maybe the SS or Hlinka Guard was hunkered down waiting to pounce on the partisans. They decided to wait until night and look for lights to appear before they approached any closer.

Night fell, but no lights came on. They skirted the market square. The train station was deserted. Dunne sat on a bench beneath the eave as Van Hull approached the first of the four boxcars. He slid the door open and clambered aboard. He struck a match, held it up, and moved into the car. The match went out. Dunne hobbled to the door and peered into the dark. “Dick,” he said in a half-whisper, “you okay?”

Van Hull lit another match. Beneath the prick of vacillating light, the floor was littered with piles of rags. The match went out.

“What’s in there?” Dunne asked.

Van Hull climbed down. “Better get in.” He used his hands to form a stirrup. “Put your good leg here, take hold of the door latch, and swing yourself up.”

With Van Hull’s support, Dunne lifted himself to the boxcar floor and stretched out his legs. His left foot hit one of the rag piles. There was a soft moan.