Blackbone (24 page)

She entered and locked it. Discovering there was an inner door that opened into Gilman’s quarters, she was about to lock that, too, but curiosity got the better of her. She eased the door open and peered into Gilman’s room. There was no one inside. She opened the bathroom door wider and stepped in, looking around.

The room was almost the same as hers—twice the size yet still tiny—like a sparse hotel suite in a New York fleabag. And it was neat; nothing was out of place. The desk was surprisingly bare, only a pair of pencils and a blotter. She resisted a temptation to open the drawers. She opened his dresser caddy instead—a handsome leather box with little compartments and slots. She picked up Gilman’s high school ring.

What are you looking for? A wedding band? He’d be wearing that, wouldn’t he?

She pictured his hands. No wedding band. No, he wasn’t married, not even engaged. He was
between.
She knew the type: hurt by someone in his past, no longer sure he would ever marry, no longer sure what he felt about women in general. Loring smiled and wondered if she was guessing even close.

She picked up a tie clasp: silver inlaid with mother-of-pearl, an odd thing for a man to choose for himself. She held it up to the light. There was an inscription on the back: Tiffany.

Loring shook her head. Soldiers didn’t shop at Tiffany. Neither did mothers. Girlfriends did. Rich girlfriends.

She tossed it back and shut the box, then she hurried back into the bathroom and locked the connecting door. In a moment she had the shower running and her clothes off. She stepped under the needle spray and reached for the soap.

He does have a girl. Rich, probably beautiful They’re engaged, planning to marry. After the war a big church wedding in Manhattan. She will become Mrs. David Gilman. He will become wealthy and lose his soul....

But why was there no picture?

Loring stopped soaping, threw the white cake back on the ledge, and stepped under the spray again.

No picture at all. No smiling rich face perched over his cot inside a silver frame. Maybe the rich lady wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. Maybe it was over. Just like her “romance” with Warren Clark was over. She laughed and rinsed out her hair.

When Gilman picked her up, Loring had changed into a dress, combed out her hair, and doused herself with perfume. She looked radiant and smelled wonderful. She could see that Gilman was impressed.

Gilman told her she looked great, but they walked the rest of the way to the officers’ mess in silence. They made a place for her at headquarters table. Hopkins was out on duty; she found herself sitting with Gilman, Cosco, Blish, and Borden. There were five more at two other tables and throughout dinner they all had a hard time keeping their eyes off her. Her dress was burgundy taffeta, off the shoulder, fringed with a pink border at the bodice, cinched at the waist with a bow. She displayed creamy White shoulders and rested her arms demurely on the table. In short order, she was accepted into their company—one of the boys.

Gilman announced she was an archaeologist. Immediately, Borden opened up. “At last we can have some intelligent conversation around here.” For the rest of the evening, he monopolized her, and she found out that he was an amateur archaeologist himself, that they knew some of the same people, that he even knew of Mahmud Yazir. After a while Loring realized she was very skillfully being pumped. Borden got her talking about Iraq and, since she saw no reason why Gilman shouldn’t have the information, she explained about her dig at Ur-Tawaq, about Moulin and Bayar and the things they had found. She said nothing about Korbazrah or the flask or what had brought her to Blackbone.

“That was a rather cheap way to get information,” Loring said, pulling the coat tighter about her shoulders.

“Pardon?” Gilman walked beside her in the dark, up the slope from the barracks to headquarters. The air had a biting chill. Spotlights swept the compound below them and illuminated the hillside.

“You know what I mean, Major. Your medical officer did all the talking, but he was asking
your
questions.”

“Was he?”

“Don’t play innocent. He knows Yazir, indeed. I doubt he ever heard the name before.”

“You think Borden’s a fake? Not an amateur at all?”

“He probably boned up on it this afternoon.”

“I see. In our camp library, I suppose. We do have liberal borrowing privileges, but our stock is rather limited.”

“Then you coached him.”

“In a field about which I know nothing.”

She whirled angrily. “I don’t care if you’re both experts. You’ve got something going on in this camp. You should be looking into that—not harassing me! I’m here to help!”

“Nobody’s harassing you. And I don’t need your help. The weather is going to change tomorrow. There could be snow, probably a storm. If that happens, they tell me the roads become impassable. Then we just have to sit until it stops. Nothing gets in; no one gets out. Now, I have no intention of keeping an unwanted guest. So first thing tomorrow, I’m going to have my adjutant contact the State Department and work up the ladder until he finds someone who knows you. Borden can call Columbia University and track down this Mock-mood Yazeer. And I will personally call the Metropolitan in New York. If you’re not on the level, it’s bye-bye so long. Whatever you won’t tell me is either top secret or ridiculously silly, so you better come clean by tomorrow morning.”

“You said twenty-four hours.”

“I changed my mind.”

Gilman left her at the stairway to her quarters and called back, “Nice gown, though! Makes you look like Rita Hayworth!”

Some of her anger melted. She watched him go across to the MP barracks.

Alone, she looked down at the compound, wondering about Kirst. The djinn was a night creature. Last night someone was murdered. How much more would have to happen before Gilman was ready to listen?

Gebhard lay on his bunk in the dark with the blankets hugged around his neck because he could no longer stand his own stench. Images stirred in his mind: the tight steamy quarters of his old U-boat, the sweat streaming off his body when the diesels were running, sticky shirts, greasy stubble... then he saw the locked shower hut, the pipes and spouts spurting water, the spray washing the sweat and grime off his skin....

He sat up. Everyone else was asleep. Gebhard looked over at Kirst. He was on his side facing the wall, motionless. Gebhard swung his legs over and stood up in his long underwear. He grabbed a towel from the shelf by the door and slipped into the corridor.

Behind him Kirst stirred.

Gebhard stepped outside, threw the towel around his shoulders, then jumped off the stoop and started running. Dodging the searchlights and keeping to the shadows, he made it to the shower hut and flattened himself against a corner. He shook from the cold. He waited for the beam to sweep past his corner, then he slipped around the side to the furnace.

He fumbled with the valves. Luckily, when they closed the showers, they hadn’t shut the pilot off. The furnace roared to life. Gebhard looked around, worried that the noise might attract a sentry. There were none in sight.

He waited for the light to pass again, then scuttled around the hut to the window. He reached under the hut to the little ledge in the foundation where he had hidden the spoon that morning. He found it, grasped it tightly with the bowl end in his palm, then he began prying the window out of the jamb.
      

In a moment, it eased out. The light came back. Gebhard dove under the foundation and lay still till it passed. About to get up again, he heard something and stopped. He turned and peered under the foundation. At first he saw nothing, then he thought he saw a black shape dart by on the other side. It disappeared. Gebhard waited, convinced it was one of the sentries, and he’d been spotted. But nothing happened. He heard the muffled roar of the furnace, but no one came to look. It was cold on the ground. He wanted that shower, so he rolled out, stood up, and opened the window. He grabbed the ledge and hauled himself up, then squeezed through and dropped inside.

He pulled the window closed, then stood up in the dark. It was quiet in the shower hut. He could hear the furnace but that was all. Water dripped somewhere. Gebhard smiled and hung his towel on a hook.

Eckmann slept fitfully. The sedatives weren’t working, and no one had thought to increase the dosage. Borden had been back a couple of times today, but Eckmann had appeared docile, still in shock. Now he tossed about on the cot and his eyes popped open. He stared at the door, a dim outline in the gloom. A single bare bulb illuminated the corridor outside but was too far away to cast much light into his tiny cell. Eckmann thought he saw a shadow move at the base of the door—the guard going past?—but he heard no footsteps. Then the shadow vanished.

He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. He started thinking of Frieda. Beautiful, sexy, buxom Frieda, with her long blond braids and eager smile.... Beautiful unfaithful Frieda! He pounded the pillow. But she wouldn’t go away. She loomed against his closed eyelids, pursed her lips and leaned forward to kiss him, but it wasn’t him she kissed. It was Schliebert. Frieda’s beautiful breasts pillowed on Schliebert’s chest, and Schliebert torched her hungrily—

Eckmann woke with a sob. Frieda was gone. He stared at the barred window and sniffled. He caught the scent of her perfume, long-forgotten but pungent now, as if she were in the room with him. He looked around.

Something rustled at the foot of the bed. Eckmann sat still, listening.

A rat?

Of course there would be rats in solitary, put there by the Americans—by Hopkins.

Eckmann’s nose wrinkled. The smell was getting stronger—sweet and musky—filling the cell. He gagged on it, then he looked up and saw a figure standing in the darkness at the end of his cot. A female figure wearing a sheer negligee that stirred over her curves. Delicate hands were flattened against her hips. Eckmann watched, fascinated, as she shifted her weight to one leg. Her belly moved back, she thrust out her hips and rocked back and forth.

Eckmann closed his eyes to make her go away but, when he opened them again, she was still there.

Her face moved out of shadow: shiny, white, with a slash of red across each lip, teeth showing, eyes bright and smoky with lust. Her hair was long and blond and braided.

Frieda.

Eckmann blinked and rubbed his eyes. The apparition wouldn’t go away. Frieda’s hips kept moving. She licked her lips, ran the tip of her tongue under her teeth and grinned. Her fingers clawed the negligee upward, exposing knee then thigh. Her movements became an insistent undulation.

Eckmann wanted her. “Frieda,” he said.

She leaned over. Her breasts swayed beneath the negligee.

“Frieda, please...” Eckmann’s voice broke. The tears came. “Why were you unfaithful?”

Frieda’s knee came down on the end of the cot. Eckmann squirreled backward. Frieda yanked the negligee up. Eckmann stared at her smooth white flesh. He wanted it.

“I trusted you! Your letters! Frieda, how could you?”

She threw herself on the cot. Her eyes gleamed wickedly. She crawled toward him. He shrank against the cell wall, curling his legs up. He wanted her, but he was scared.

“Frieda, no...”

She sat on her legs and skinned off the negligee. She was naked underneath. She drew the material across his body. Eckmann quivered at the wispy touch. He watched her eyes as she lifted her breasts, one plump globe in each hand, selling lust not love. Eckmann didn’t want lust. He wanted his innocent darling Frieda, not this grotesque amoral animal....

She descended on him, pulling at him, urgently tugging at his clothing, nipping his flesh. She pressed his hand to her bosom and rubbed his palm over her nipples. They were hard. Eckmann moaned. Heat flooded into his crotch. He felt a potency growing that he had never before experienced with his darling Frieda....

She soothed him, the back of one hand against his cheek, stroking gently, the other tearing at his trousers. Her eyes were distended with erotic need, her nipples swollen and forcing themselves between his lips. Eckmann groaned and all fear left him. He sank into the sensual bath of her embrace, murmuring her name, letting her tear off his clothes. Then he was helping, flinging them aside. Her hand closed on the stiff, engorged center of him. Then she turned completely around and straddled him. Her mouth sucked him in deeply and hotly. Eckmann trembled with excitement and reached for her hips, pulling her down. His mouth closed on the hot wet center of her. Her movements quickened. She devoured him wolfishly. Everything she did demonstrated a wealth of whorish knowledge—

Schliebert, Schliebert. Frieda with Schliebert, riding him.

Eckmann panicked, remembering last night, remembering his unfaithful Frieda with that bastard Schliebert, and seeing in addition his beautiful darling Frieda with all the men she must have been with since their wedding, since he’d left. He fought those thoughts. He knew where they were leading, back to the truth that he had buried so deeply, the shame that he was so afraid of facing, that he had disguised so well in his thousand and one letters proclaiming love and devotion. He tried to get up. She kept him pinned down. His fear grew.