The Wolf's Hour (45 page)

So that was it, Michael realized. This had nothing to do with his mission, or the fact that he was a British secret agent. Sandler and Blok wanted Baron von Fange to disappear. It also was clear that Sandler didn’t know about his hawk’s fate; he probably hadn’t had a chance to return to the hotel, and wouldn’t go back until this ludicrous “hunt” was finished. Of course Chesna wouldn’t believe the story about Michael being drunk. She’d know something was up; what would she do? He couldn’t think about that right now, though. His primary concern was the smiling man who sat across the table from him, chewing on bloody meat. “I love Chesna,” Michael said. “Chesna loves me. Doesn’t that make a difference?” He let a little weakness creep into his voice; no use making Sandler too cautious.

“Oh, screw that! Chesna doesn’t love you!” He speared another piece of meat on his fork and ate it. “Maybe she’s infatuated. Maybe she likes your company-though I have no idea why. Anyway, Chesna sometimes lets her heart rule her head. She’s a fantastic woman: beautiful, talented, well bred. And a daredevil, too. Did you know she flies her own plane? She did aerial stunts in one of those movies she made. She’s a champion swimmer, and I can tell you she fires a rifle better than a lot of men I’ve met. She’s tough up here”-he touched his skull-“but she’s got the heart of a woman. She’s been involved in ill-advised love affairs before, but she’s never talked marriage. I’m a little disappointed; I always thought she was a better judge of character.”

“Meaning you don’t like the fact that Chesna chose me instead of you?”

“Chesna’s choices are not always wise,” Sandler said. “Sometimes she has to be led to the right decision. So Colonel Blok and I have decided you’re out of the picture, permanently.”

“What makes you think she’ll marry you, even if I’m dead?”

“I’m working on it. Besides, it would be a great propaganda piece for the Reich. Two Americans who’ve chosen to live under the Nazi banner. And Chesna’s a star, too. Our pictures would be in newspapers and magazines around the world. You see?”

Michael did see. Not only was Sandler a traitor and a murderer, he had a colossal ego. Even if Michael hadn’t wanted to kill him before, this would have sealed it. He picked up his plastic spoon, broke the shell of the first egg, lifted it to his mouth, and downed it. Sandler laughed. “Raw meat and raw eggs. Baron, you must’ve been raised in a barn!”

Michael ate the second egg the same way. Hugo returned, with carafes of apple juice for Michael and Sandler. The big-game hunter drank down his glass, but Michael paused with his glass right at his lips. He smelled a faint, slightly bitter odor. A poison of some kind? No, the odor wasn’t that bitter. But there was a drug in the juice. A sedative, he reasoned. Something to make him sluggish. He put the glass aside and reached for his coffee again. “What’s wrong?” Sandler asked. “Don’t you like apples?”

“It smells a little wormy.” He cracked the third egg’s shell, and slid the yolk into his mouth, bursting it between his teeth. He swallowed, wanting to get the rich protein into his system as quickly as possible, then he washed it down with coffee. The tracks were turning to the northeast, beginning to circle around Berlin again.

“Aren’t you going to beg?” Sandler leaned forward. “Just a little bit?”

“Would it do any good?”

Sandler hesitated, then shook his head. His eyes were dark and cautious, and Michael knew he’d sensed something he hadn’t expected. Michael decided to probe once more: “So I don’t have much of a chance, do I? Like a roach under an iron fist?”

“Oh, you have a chance. A small one.” Again, there was no recognition of the phrase in Sandler’s face. Whatever Iron Fist was, Harry Sandler knew nothing about it. “To die a quick death, that is. Just get to the locomotive before I find you. I’ll be armed, of course. I’ve brought along my favorite rifle. You, unfortunately, will be unarmed. But you’ll have a ten-minute head start. You’re going to be taken back to your room for a while. Then you’ll hear an alarm buzzer go off. That’ll be your signal to start running.” He carved another bite of steak, then slid the knife into the rest of it. “There’s no use to try to hide in your room, or hold the door shut. I’ll just find you that much faster. And if you think you can jump off the train, you’re mistaken. There are soldiers aboard who’ll be stationed between each car. And the windows… well, you can forget those.” He motioned to Hugo, who’d been standing nearby waiting to clear away the plates. Hugo began to crank down the window shutters again. Slowly the sunlight was sealed off. “Let’s make this a sporting contest, all right?” Sandler urged. “You do your part, and I’ll do mine.”

The last shutter closed. Hugo brought the key from his vest to lock them, and in the folds of his coat Michael saw a pistol in a holster.

“Don’t think about trying to get Hugo’s gun,” Sandler said, tracking Michael’s gaze. “He spent eight months on the Russian Front, and he’s an expert shot. Any questions about the ground rules?”

“No.”

“You really do amaze me, Baron. I have to say I thought you’d be on your knees by now. It just goes to show: you never know what’s inside a man, do you?” His grin was all teeth. “Hugo, will you return the baron to his quarters please?”

“Yes, sir.” The pistol emerged from his holster and was pointed at Michael.

When the door to his room was closed, Michael found the chamber altered. The mirror, the table, the white bowl, and the towel were missing. Also the single hanger was gone from the closet. Michael had been looking forward to using shards of the mirror, pieces of the bowl, and the hanger to slash his way out of this. The light globe remained, however, and Michael looked up at it. The globe was out of reach, though he felt sure he could devise some way to burst it to pieces. He sat down on the bed to think, the train gently swaying and the wheels clattering on the rails. Did he really need weapons to beat Harry Sandler at his own game? He didn’t think so. He could change into a wolf and be ready to go once the alarm buzzer sounded.

But he didn’t change. He already had the edge in instincts and perception. All changing would do was lose him his clothes. He could walk on two legs and think like a wolf, and still beat Sandler. The only problem was that Sandler knew the train better than he. Michael would have to find a place suitable to set up an ambush, and then…

Then the heavy weight of the Countess Margritta would be lifted from him. Then he could write finis to that sorry episode of his life, and turn away from the compulsion of revenge.

He would beat Harry Sandler as a man, he decided. With hands instead of claws.

He waited.

Perhaps two hours passed, in which Michael lay down and rested. He was totally calm now, mentally and physically prepared.

The alarm buzzer went off, a jarring note. It lasted for maybe ten seconds, and by the time it had ended Michael was out the door and on his way toward the locomotive.

2

The soldier at the connection of cars shoved Michael along with the point of his pistol, and Michael went through the door into the opulent car where breakfast had been served. The soldier stayed behind, and the door hissed shut at Michael’s back.

The metal shutters were all drawn. The chandelier lights burned low, as did the carriage lamps. Michael began walking through the car, but he stopped at the white linen-covered table.

The plates had not been cleared away. And there, in the remains of Sandler’s steak, was the knife, stuck upright, the handle offered.

Michael stared at the knife. This was an interesting situation; why was the knife still there? One answer: Sandler expected him to take it. And what would happen if he did? Michael carefully placed a finger on the knife handle, felt all around it with a gentle touch, and found what he was seeking. A thin, almost invisible filament of wire was twined around the handle. It went up, hidden in the dimness of the room, to the chandelier overhead. Michael inspected the light fixture. Hidden in the ornamentation was a small brass pistol, and the filament was attached to its cocked trigger. He judged the angle of the barrel, realizing that if he’d pulled the knife from the steak the trigger would’ve tripped and a bullet would have gone through his left shoulder. Michael smiled grimly. So that was why he’d been left in his room for two hours. During that time Sandler and his train crew had been busy rigging up devices such as this. A ten-minute head start indeed, Michael thought. This game might’ve been over very quickly.

He decided to give Sandler something to think about, perhaps slow him down a little. He stepped aside, out of the pistol’s line of fire, and kicked a leg out from underneath the table. As the table fell, the filament snapped and the pistol went off with a loud, sharp crack. The bullet blew splinters from the rosewood wall. Michael picked up the knife, and was amused anew; it had only a useless stub of a blade. He took the pistol from the chandelier, but he already knew what he would find. There had been only one bullet in the cylinder.

So much for that. He let the pistol fall to the carpet and went on through the car. But his steps were slower now, more wary. He looked for trip wires stretched along the floor, realizing at the same time that a trip wire might be waiting to brush through his hair. He paused at the door to the kitchen, his hand near the knob. Surely Sandler would expect him to try this door, to get at the utensils that might lie beyond it. The doorknob had been recently polished, and it shone like a promise. Too easy, Michael thought. Turning that knob might pull the trigger of a gun set up to blast him through the wood. He drew his hand away, retreated from the door, and kept going. Another soldier stood guard in the next connection between cars, his heavy-lidded eyes showing no emotion. Michael wondered how many of Sandler’s victims had even gotten past the first car. But he couldn’t congratulate himself yet; there were three more cars between here and the locomotive.

Michael went through the door into the next car. There was a central aisle along its length, and rows of seats on either side of the aisle. The windows were sealed with metal shutters, but two chandeliers spaced equidistantly at the ceiling glowed with false cheer. The car swayed gently back and forth as the train followed a curve, and the whistle blew a brief warning note. Michael knelt down, looking along the aisle at knee level. If a trip wire was there, he couldn’t see it. He was aware that Sandler would be after him by now, and at any moment the hunter might burst through the door at his back. Michael couldn’t wait; he stood up and slowly began walking down the aisle, his hands up in the air in front of him and his eyes watching for the glint of a wire at his knees or ankles.

There was no wire, either above or below. Michael had begun to sweat a little bit; surely there was something in this car, waiting for him to blunder into it. Or was it empty of traps, and this simply a mind snare? He approached the second chandelier, about twenty feet from the next car. He looked up as he neared the chandelier, his eyes searching the brass arms for a concealed weapon; there was none.

His left foot sank about a quarter inch into the carpet, and he heard the small, soft click of a latch disengaging.

He had stepped on a pressure pad. He felt the cold wind of death on the back of his neck.

In an instant Michael had reached up, grasped the chandelier, and pulled his knees up to his chest. The shotgun that was hidden at the floor to his left boomed, the lead pellets passing across the aisle where his knees had been two seconds before and slamming into the seats on his right. In another heartbeat the shotgun’s second barrel fired, demolishing the seats. Shards of wood and pieces of shredded fabric whirled in the concussion.

Michael lowered his feet to the floor and let go of the chandelier. Blue gunsmoke drifted around him. One glance at the wrecked seats told him what the shotgun would’ve done to his knees. Crippled, he’d have writhed on the floor until Sandler arrived.

He heard the whoosh of the door opening at the far end of the car. He looked back. Sandler, wearing a khaki hunter’s outfit, lifted his rifle, took aim, and fired.

Michael was already diving to the floor. The bullet sang over his left shoulder and thunked off a shuttered window.

Before Sandler could fix his aim again. Michael leaped up in a blur of motion and crashed headlong through the door at his end of the car. A soldier was there, as Michael had expected. The man had a pistol in his hand, and reached down to grasp the back of Michael’s coat and pull him to his feet.

Michael didn’t wait for the man to haul him up; he sprang up under his own power, slamming the top of his head against the soldier’s chin. The man staggered back, his eyes wide and blurred with pain. Michael grasped the man’s wrist, keeping the gun turned aside, and struck with the flat of his hand upward against the sharp Germanic nose. The soldier’s nose shattered, the nostrils spraying blood, and Michael grabbed hold of the Luger and slung the man away from him like a sack of straw. He whirled around, looking through the door’s small glass inset. Sandler was more than halfway down the aisle. Michael lifted the Luger to fire through the glass and saw Sandler stop in his tracks. The rifle barrel was coming up. Both guns went off at the same instant.

Splinters of wood exploded around Michael, just as fragments of glass flew at Harry Sandler. What felt like a burning brand kissed Michael’s right thigh, and the shock knocked him to his knees. The door’s glass inset was gone, and there was a hole in the wood the size of a man’s fist where Sandler’s bullet had passed through. Michael fired again through the door, and was answered a few seconds later by another rifle slug that threw a shower of splinters and hit the wall over Michael’s head. This was a dangerous place to stay. Michael got up in a crouch, one hand pressed to the spreading crimson stain at his right thigh, and backed through the next door into the car ahead.

The clattering roar of the train wheels made him turn. The car he stood in had no floor; it was just a metal-shuttered shell, and Michael stood on the edge looking down at the speeding blur of the railroad tracks. Above his head an iron pipe attached to the ceiling went the length of the car, sixty feet or so. There was no way to the other side except hand over hand on the pipe. He looked toward the bullet-pocked door he’d just come through. Sandler was waiting, biding his time. Maybe one of the Luger slugs had hit him, or maybe the glass had blown into his face. It occurred to Michael that his best chance to get off this madman’s leviathan was to continue to the locomotive and gain control of the throttle. If Sandler was gravely wounded, the soldiers would probably pick up the hunt. In any case he couldn’t wait here very much longer; the rifle bullet had nicked a groove in his thigh, and he was losing a lot of blood. In another few minutes his strength would be a memory. He pushed the Luger down into his waistband and jumped over the rushing rails, locking his hands around the iron pipe. His body swung back and forth, warm blood creeping down his right leg. He started along the pipe, reaching out as far as he could with one hand before he let the other one loose.

Michael had made it past the midpoint when he heard, over the thunder of the wheels, the staccato bark of a high-powered rifle. The bullet hit the ceiling about six inches to the left of the pipe. Michael twisted his head, saw Sandler in the doorway behind him, chambering another round. Sandler was grinning, his face streaked with crimson rivulets from glass slashes. He lifted the rifle and took aim at Michael’s head.

Michael held oh with one hand and wrenched the Luger from his waistband. He saw Sandler’s finger on the trigger, and he knew he’d never get a shot off in time.

“Drop it!” Sandler bellowed over the noise. “Drop it, you son of a bitch, or I’ll blow your damned head off!”

Michael paused. He was calculating in inches and fractions of seconds. No, he decided; Sandler’s next bullet would hit its mark before the Luger could fire.

“I said drop the gun! Now!” Sandler’s grin had become a twisted rictus, and blood dripped from his chin.

Michael’s fingers opened. The Luger fell onto the rails, and was gone.

“I got you, didn’t I?” Sandler shouted, looking at the dark stain on Michael’s thigh. “I knew I got you! You thought you were smart, didn’t you?” He wiped his forearm across his face and stared at the crimson that smeared it. “You made me bleed, you son of a bitch!” he said, and Michael saw him blink dazedly. Glass shards glittered in the hunter’s face. “You’re a real card, Baron! I thought for sure the knife would get you! And the shotgun… that usually finishes the hunt! No one’s ever made it this far before!”

Michael grasped the pipe with both hands. He was thinking furiously, cold sweat on his face. “You haven’t got me yet,” he said.

“The hell I don’t! One squeeze of this trigger and I’ve got a new trophy!”

“You haven’t caught me,” Michael went on. “You call yourself a hunter?” He laughed harshly. “There’s another car to go, isn’t there? I can make it through whatever you’ve got in there… wounded leg and all!” He saw new interest-the thrill of the challenge-flare in Sandler’s eyes. “You can shoot me right now, but I’ll fall to the rails. You won’t take me alive… and isn’t that what it’s all about?”

It was the hunter’s turn to laugh. He lowered his rifle and licked blood from his lips. “You’ve got guts, Baron! I never would’ve expected such guts from a tulip sniffer! Well, we’ve both drawn blood, eh? So we’ll call the first round even. But you won’t make it through the next car, Baron; that I promise you.”

“I say I will.”

Sandler grinned fiercely. “We’ll see. Go on. I’ll give you sixty seconds.”

Michael took what he could get. He continued along the pipe. Sandler shouted, “Next time, you’re meat!” Michael reached a small platform in front of the next door and swung himself down onto it. The soldier who guarded the entrance to the final car stepped back, out of Michael’s reach, and motioned him on with a gesture of his gun. Michael glanced back, saw Sandler sliding the rifle strap around his shoulder in preparation for crossing the pipe. The final car awaited, and Michael entered it.

The door closed behind him. Its glass inset was painted black. Not a trace of light entered the car; it was as dark as the blackest night. Michael looked for shapes before him-furniture, light fixtures, anything to tell him what lay ahead-but could make out nothing. He held his hands out in front of his face and stepped forward. Another step. Then a third. Still no obstructions. The wound at his thigh was a dull throb, the blood oozing down his leg. He took a fourth step, and something bit his fingers.

He pulled his hands back, his fingers stinging. Razors or broken glass, he thought. He reached out again, to his left, felt empty space. Two steps forward and a third to the left grazed his hand against more razors. Michael’s blood had gone cold. It was a maze, he realized. The maze’s walls were covered with broken razors.

He quickly took his coat off and wrapped it around his hands. Then he started forward again, deeper into the absolute dark. His senses quested; he sniffed the air, smelled engine oil, the bitter scent of burning coal in the locomotive, his own coppery blood. His heart was pounding, his eyes straining to make out shapes in the blackness. His hands touched another wall of razors, directly in front of him. He found a razor-studded wall to his left as well; the maze was leading him to the right, and he had no choice but to follow the passageway. It turned sharply to the left again, suddenly ceasing in a dead end. Michael knew he’d missed a corridor somewhere, and he’d have to backtrack. As he searched for the way out, the razors shredding the coat around his hands, he heard the door open and close at the entrance to the car: Sandler had arrived.

“Like my little maze, Baron?” Sandler asked. “I hope you’re not afraid of the dark.”

Michael knew better than to answer. Sandler would key in on the sound of his voice. He felt along the walls, wincing as a razor came through the fabric and sliced his fingers. There it was! A narrow corridor-or, at least, what appeared to be a corridor. He moved into it and kept going with his hands up in front of him.

“I can’t figure you out, Baron!” Sandler said. The voice had moved; Sandler was coming through the maze. “I thought you’d break by now! Or maybe you have broken, and you’re lying huddled in a corner. Is that right?”

Michael came to another wall. The corridor turned to the right at an angle that grazed blades through his shirt and across the flesh of his shoulder.