Afraid of the Dark (35 page)
Read Afraid of the Dark Online
Authors: James Grippando
The Czech Republic
S
now was falling as Jack drove out of Prague. Andie was in the passenger seat. It was their first trip abroad together. It wasn’t exactly a vacation.
“Funny,” said Jack, “an entire branch of my family tree is from this area. And every road I turn down, I see Jamal Wakefield in the trunk of a car heading off to a black site.”
Andie glanced out the window. “That location will never be public information.” She was right, Jack realized. The only living person who knew the exact location was Danilo Bahena, and he was sitting in jail for the murder of Neil Goderich. The likelihood of his talking was almost nil.
“To be honest,” said Jack, “it doesn’t really seem that important anymore.”
Andie reached across the console and held his hand. Her touch had a way of reaffirming something that he was now more sure of than ever: Andie was on his side. She’d taken a huge risk by calling him in London to explain how his case and her investigation overlapped, and to warn him about what he was up against. It was not yet clear how that would play out for her professionally, but she wasn’t fired, and she had the support of her supervisor. But Jack had a feeling there was more to come.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Jack nodded, and they rode on in silence, his thoughts drifting back to the mission at hand.
Grandpa Swyteck had died in his sleep. As best Jack could piece events together, it was right around the time doctors at the Royal Hospital of London were assuring Vince that his stab wound wasn’t fatal. Jack flew home from London for the funeral. Ten days later, he was back in Europe with Andie—and with a handful of his grandfather’s ashes.
“Turn left in one hundred meters.”
It was the mechanical voice of the GPS. Hearing it made Jack think of fifty-pound notes wrapped in aluminum foil.
The fatal shooting of Habib Warsame Dhamac was ruled self-defense, even though it was clear to Jack that Chuck had his plan to avenge McKenna’s death, and Shada had hers. The fact that neither had known what the other was doing could have gotten everyone killed—which seemed like a metaphor for their marriage. Chuck was being held in the U.K. on weapons charges. Shada had much bigger problems with the law. Her attorney would surely build a classic “Patty Hearst” defense and argue that her involvement in the murders of Ethan Chang and Neil Goderich was carefully choreographed by the Dark to cement his control over her—more specifically, that she’d had no idea she was administering a lethal dose of anything to Chang, and that she’d played lookout for Bahena outside Neil’s office only because the Dark had brainwashed her into thinking that it was her last chance to learn the truth about Jamal Wakefield.
As for Chuck, he seemed more concerned that Shada get psychological counseling than legal help. A divorce was in the works, and his commitment remained Project Round Up. Nothing could have driven home the importance of that work more than seeing a teenage girl reunited with her family after months of the Dark’s psychological abuse. The bomb strapped to her body had been real, and she was still looking at long-term therapy, but one life had already been saved. Jamal’s uncle had played a big role in that rescue, even if her fears and brainwashing did drive her back to the Dark after Hassan had been hospitalized. Jack felt like he still owed him an apology for harboring those initial suspicions about him.
“You have arrived at your destination.”
The tiny village of Lidice dates back to the fourteenth century, and by the late nineteenth century it was a busy mining village in the rolling hills of the Bohemia region. The old village was destroyed during World War II, and the new village sits near the original town site, about ten miles west of Prague. Much of the thirty-minute drive is on divided expressways, two lanes in each direction, a far cry from the roads traveled by the Nazis on their way to Prague.
Jack’s grandfather had few possessions at the time of his death, and the most important provisions of his will dealt with the disposition of his remains. The instructions—worded more like a request—were to find a woman named Eliška Sokol in Lidice, who would know exactly where to spread the ashes. She wasn’t hard to find. Lidice has fewer than five hundred residents, and Eliška had lived in the same house since the complete rebuilding of the village after the war.
Jack knocked on the door. He had phoned ahead so that Eliška would expect him, and she answered the door herself. She was as he had imagined her on the telephone, frail and walking with a cane, but she had a bright and determined look in her eyes. She had to be in her late eighties, perhaps ninety. Her English was passable.
“You look just like Joseph,” she said.
“I’ve heard that from others,” Jack said, and he appreciated hearing it again.
Eliška apologized for being out of coffee, but Jack wanted to get to the spot anyway. He helped her on with her coat, and Andie gave her the front seat of their little rental car. It was a short ride to the site of the original village—now a memorial.
Mention of Lidice in Grandpa’s will had naturally prompted Jack to research it. It was the same piece of history that Grandpa Swyteck had shared with Andie in one of the last lucid moments in his life, while Jack was in London. Andie hadn’t told him until after the funeral, and Jack was moved to hear that his grandfather’s words had come back to her in the depths of her own torture, maybe even helped her survive at a time when every second mattered. It made the trip as important to her as it was to Jack.
They both knew the horrific story, but Jack let Eliška tell it in the voice of someone who had been there.
“After Nazis invade our country,” she said, her English less than perfect, “the Reich Protector of Bohemia was SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. Second in command to Himmler in the SS branch responsible for the Final Solution.”
“A worthy target for assassination,” said Jack.
“Yes,” said Eliška. “The resistance thought same. They organized in London and pulled it off. Then the nightmare comes. Nazis search everywhere for assassins. Finally, Berlin say the assassins were aided by two families in Lidice.” Eliška paused, and her gaze drifted toward the passenger’s-side window, toward the snow-covered acres of the memorial. “The punishment was decided by Adolf Hitler himself.”
She stopped and breathed deeply, and Jack wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue or not. When she seemed ready, Jack came around to help Eliška out of the car.
Theirs was the only vehicle in the parking lot. The snow had stopped falling, but the surrounding hills were covered with a fresh white blanket. Eliška walked to the far end of the lot. With Andie at his side, Jack guided Eliška by the arm, but he let her take the last few steps on her own, sensing that she wanted to be alone for a moment. She stopped in front of a large bronze memorial. It was covered with snow, and in the late-afternoon shadows Jack couldn’t tell exactly what it was from this distance. But in the cold breeze, he could almost feel the history.
Eliška continued in an old voice that shook.
“Nine June, 1942,” she said. “Close to midnight. Nazis close all roads to Lidice. No way in or out of town. The Gestapo go house to house. They search everywhere. They push families out into streets and loot their homes. Men are taken to the Horak family barn. Biggest building in the village. Women and children are herded into the school building. Then, at five o’clock in the morning, the shooting starts.”
Eliška lowered her head, as if she’d said as much as she could say. Jack knew the rest from his research. All the men were shot dead by a firing squad. The children were taken from their mothers and, except for those selected for reeducation in German families and babies under one year of age, were poisoned by exhaust gas in specially adapted vehicles in the Nazi extermination camp at Chełmno upon Nerr in Poland. The women were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, which usually meant quick or lingering death for the inmates. The town was burned to the ground. Even its cemeteries were destroyed.
“These are the children,” said Eliška.
Jack and Andie came to her side, and now he could see through the blanket of snow and shadows. Eighty-nine bronze children were looking back at him. Eliška’s hand was shaking as she handed him a card. It was a list of names and dates. Two names were circled for him.
Petrak, Miloslav: 1931. Petrak, Zdenek: 1933.
“They were nine and eleven when they were gassed,” she said.
The thought sent chills down Jack’s spine. “Is that the same Petrak that runs in my family?”
“Petrak is common name,” said Eliška. “But in 1942, it was very dangerous name.”
“Why?” asked Jack. But the moment he said it, he remembered Andie’s research on General Petrak, the leader in exile of the Czech resistance.
“Nazis knew General Petrak helped with assassination. No need to prove relations to be guilty.”
Jack’s gaze swept the memorial. Children of all ages, from one to seventeen. He was drawn to two, in particular, that looked to be the figures of boys aged nine and eleven.
“That way,” said Eliška, “about two hundred meters. That is your grandfather’s spot.”
Jack didn’t move. He still didn’t understand. “How do you mean, ‘his spot’?”
“It was a barn. I met Joseph there. Eight of us, in hiding. Joseph was with his mother.”
“Petrak was her maiden name,” said Jack.
“Yes. One week before massacre, we all hear it not safe to stay in Lidice. Not safe for Jews. Not safe for a Petrak. We leave in time.”
It finally made sense. “My grandfather got confused at the end. He told me he was Jewish.”
She smiled sadly. “He was,” she said, “and I was a Petrak. Now go. Go and do your grandfather’s wishes.”
Andie urged him forward with her eyes, as if to say this was his moment.
The sculpture overlooked a valley, and the walk to the spot was entirely downhill. But it didn’t make it any easier for Jack. As he trudged through the snow, he was thinking of his grandfather. He was thinking of his friend Neil, too.
He stopped exactly where Eliška had told him to stop. A wisp of wind grabbed the fresh snow and covered his shoes with powder. He dug the canister from his coat pocket and removed the top.
“I’m a Petrak,” he said as he released some of the ashes into the wind. Then he remembered Neil’s family name before fear of the Nazis had changed it to Goderich.
“And I’m a Goldsmith,” he said, watching the remaining ashes scatter.
M
y sincere
thank you
. . .
To my editor, Sally Kim; my agent, Richard Pine; and Sally’s editorial assistant, Maya Ziv, who did a great job shepherding my eighteenth novel through production while Sally was on maternity leave. Olive will be in high school by the time I write another eighteen novels, and I guess her mother should hear this now: It will fly.
To Janis Koch (aka “Conan the Grammarian”), who is fighting to save the world from misspellings and bad grammar, one book at a time. (Don’t get her started on the impact of texting on the English language.) The errors that remain in
Afraid of the Dark
are all mine.
To Kevin Smith—inventor, scientist, and your basic all-around genius who could write a book on creative solutions for suspense writers who have painted themselves into a technological corner. Who knew what cool things you could do with aluminum foil?
To my sister, Roberta Hall, for the genealogical legwork that led me to our “Petrak” ancestors in Bohemia, and to the Muzeum Památníku Lidice, for the wealth of information on the sad history of Lidice and the Lidice Memorial.
Finally, to my wife, Tiffany. I’d be afraid of much more than the dark without you in my life.
JMG
May 20, 2010
J
AMES
G
RIPPANDO
is the
New York
Times
bestselling author of eighteen previous novels, including
Money to Burn
,
Intent to
Kill
,
Born to Run
,
Last Call
,
Lying with Strangers
,
When Darkness Falls
, and
Got the
Look
, which are enjoyed worldwide in twenty-six languages. He lives
in Florida, where he was a trial lawyer.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Money to Burn
Intent to Kill
Born to Run*
Last Call*
Lying with Strangers
When Darkness Falls*
†
Got the Look*
Hear No Evil*
Last to Die*
Beyond Suspicion*
A King’s Ransom
Under Cover of Darkness
‡
Found Money
The Abduction
The Informant
The Pardon*
And for young adults
Leapholes
*A Jack Swyteck Novel
†
Vincent Paulo’s debut
‡
FBI agent Andie Henning’s debut
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AFRAID OF THE DARK
. Copyright © 2011 by James Grippando. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition April 2011 ISBN: 9780062078605
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