Down: Pinhole (44 page)

“I think it worked. She was there.”

“I am glad.”

John got down on his haunches so he could look the kneeling monk in the eyes. “I would like you to do something for me. If you feel you can’t, just say so.”

“Tell me what you wish.”

“You speak German. You’re a monk. You won’t be considered a hostile threat. I’d like you to carry a message from me to Emily inside the German camp.”

“Of course, my son. I will do this for you, happily.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“I have no fear. Even here, I still feel I am in God’s hands. What is the message?”

“Tell her John Camp is here to rescue her. Tell her I’ll come for her soon.”

“How will she know this is not some trick?”

“My name.”

“Might she have uttered your name to someone who is now using it to fool her?”

“You’ve got a devious mind, Adolphus.”

“It is a skill of survival. Tell me something only you would know.”

He thought for a few moments and said, “All right, tell her thirty TeV.”

“Thirty T-E-V. Is that correct?”

“You’ve got it.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s hard to explain. If you’re ready we’ll ride with you most of the way.”

Adolphus wandered into the German encampment on foot as if he were invisible, all the while, practicing his message in a self-whisper, “John Camp is here. Thirty T-E-V. John Camp is here to rescue you. Thirty T-E-V.”

The frail old man in monk’s robes hardly raised an eyebrow and when one soldier finally looked up from his plate of millet the monk blessed him in German and asked where he might find the lady with golden hair.

The soldier seemed to know precisely what the old man spoke of because rumors of a live woman with golden hair had spread through the camp like wildfire.

“She is alive, you know,” the soldier said.

“I have heard this.”

“Is that why you want to see her?”

“It is. I wish to hear if our Lord, Jesus Christ, is still revered on Earth as he was in my day.”

“Christ is my lord no longer,” the soldier spat, “but you may find her in a fancy wagon near the king’s at the center of the camp.”

Adolphus soon found the likely wagon as it was gilded and near a white tent as had been described to him. Tall guards with muskets surrounded it.

He was challenged as he approached and asked, “Is the live woman in here? I am a poor old monk who wishes to speak with her.”

The captain of the guard demanded to know who he was and how he had gotten into their midst. Adolphus would only say he had heard a rumor and as a loyal subject of King Frederick he prayed he might have the briefest of words to ask her about Christianity on Earth.

The tough soldier told him to go away or suffer the consequences. He tried his best to persuade the tough soldier otherwise. But it was to no avail. When another soldier grabbed his robe to pull him away, he called out in English, “Emily! Emily! Could I speak with you, please?”

The wagon door opened and Andreas stepped out. A curtain parted from a window and Adolphus saw a woman. Hearing the commotion, Himmler emerged from another wagon close by and headed in their direction.

“Who are you?” Andreas asked the monk.

Adolphus whispered, “I have a message for the lady Emily.”

Himmler was shouting now and the captain of the guard responded briskly to the order and came behind the monk.

Adolphus was about to speak when he inhaled sharply at the sight of a saber blade emerging from his belly. The captain pulled the sword out as quickly as he had thrust it in and the monk collapsed onto his side, his breathing turning desperate.

Andreas knelt beside him and put his ear close to the monk’s moving lips. Adolphus seemed to be struggling with his thoughts and a full sentence was not forthcoming. At the moment before exsanguination forever cost him his speech, the only thing he remembered to whisper was, “Thirty T-E-V.”

“What did he say?” Himmler demanded.

Andreas rose, shrugging. “He said a number.”

“What number?”

“Thirty.”

“Thirty? Was that all?”

“I think just that. Then some gibberish before he said no more.”

“Does anyone know him?” Himmler demanded.

No one did.

“All right then, probably just a crazy old man who followed us from Germania. Throw him into a fire and let’s get back to sleep.”

Emily had been watching from the window and when Andreas came back in she demanded to know what the old man had wanted.

“He said he wanted to speak to you.”

“How did he know my name?”

“I do not know.”

“What else did he say?”

“He said he had a message for you.”

“What message?”

“He said, ‘Thirty.’”

“What does that mean?”

“I do not know.”

“That was it, nothing else?”

The eunuch thrust out his chin as his mind tried to grind out a recollection of the last bit of gibberish. His face lit up. “I remember. It was letters. T-E-V. That is right, T-E-V.”

She began trembling. “Are you absolutely sure? He said, ‘Thirty TeV?’”

Andreas nodded vigorously.

She collapsed on her bed in tears and one thought churned over and over.

I’m saved. My God, I’m saved.

John felt the recoil of each burst of automatic fire against his shoulder. His aiming point was the top of the low wall surrounding the Taliban farmhouse. Each time there was a new muzzle flash, he adjusted his targeting to that point. Through his nights cope he could see his rounds pulverizing mud bricks.

“How bad’s he hit?” he shouted into his radio.

The medic answered back, “It’s a through and through to his leg but it’s not arterial. He’ll be okay.”

“Fuck I will,” Stankiewicz blurted out in pain.

John saw that Knebel and Stankiewicz were exposed to incoming fire so he got to his feet and positioned himself into a crouch between them and the hostiles.

He and his men on the south side of the house kept up a steady rate of fire, changing out mags when empty. Mike Entwistle’s squad was on the north side. It sounded like they had engaged too.

“Mike! Give me your status,” John said out into his headset.

“We’re taking and returning fire,” Mike radioed. “This is fucked up.”

“Billy,” John shouted, “put some 40s into that wall.”

His gunnery sergeant immediately sent a round from his M203 grenade launcher down range, blowing a hole the size of a watermelon through it.

“Keep them coming,” John said. “Mike, put 40s into your side too. We’re going to have to blast our way in.”

“Roger.”

Through his scope John saw something sticking out of the fresh hole in the wall.

“RPG!” he shouted, as the grenade streaked toward him.

He flopped to his belly and heard the whoosh of the projectile above his head. The explosion finally came well behind them.

Ben Knebel had also fallen to the ground, landing beside Stankiewicz and scattering first-aid supplies onto the sandy soil. “Christ!” he shouted. “Too damn close.”

In his ear, John heard the calm voice of his Black Hawk pilot. “Hey, Major, we’re watching your fireworks from one click out. You want us to throw some heat on your tangos?”

“That’s affirmative,” John said. “Light up the perimeter walls. Perimeter walls only. Not the house. Repeat, not the house. We want our HVT alive.”

“Roger that.”

Soon tracer rounds from the chopper’s M60C machine gun began thwacking into the mud walls and then the gunship’s 30mm cannon let loose.

Through his night-vision scope the flashes were unbearably bright so he watched the explosions with his naked eyes. Each orange fireball lit the farmhouse for a moment.

The night was black then orange, black, orange.

He was almost mesmerized by the raw beauty of the desert light show when he heard an awful scream through his earpiece, the kind of scream that once you hear it, never gets out of your head.

Startled, John looked around for the source of the screaming only to hear Simon’s raspy snoring coming from the cot beside him. He threw off his blanket, stepped over his sleeping comrades, and parted the tent flaps.

A fog that clung to the tops of the tents and the tips of the meadow grass heralded the morning of the grand battle. Few of the soldiers were pleased but John welcomed the mist like a friend and hoped it would linger well into the day. He was far less pleased about Adolphus, since the monk had failed to reappear at the Italian camp. When John had left him near the German position the night before, the monk had assured them he could find his way back. After all, he said, he had been wandering these parts for a very long time.

“I am sorry, John,” Antonio said sympathetically when he returned to the cooking fire. “I have not seen him.”

“Then I have no idea she got my message.”

Simon looked up from his bowl of oats. “I’ll wager the monk got through and delivered it just fine.”

“Why do you say that?” Caravaggio asked.

Garibaldi joined them. “Because living in Hell has turned Simon into an optimist,” he chuckled. “John, I promise you that we will launch a raid into the German field encampment as soon as we have neutralized Henry.”

John adjusted his heavy shoulder bag, went for his saddled horse and said, “Then let’s get this show on the road.”

King Henry was raging at the fog and none of his nobles could calm him.

“How can we begin our assault if we cannot see our way? I was cursed in life and I am cursed in death.”

“We must make our way with caution,” Oxford said, “but the fog cuts both ways, Your Majesty. We cannot see the French but the French cannot see us. Once we reach the Seine the visibility should be much improved.”

Henry fumed. “Send scouts ahead. And where is my mounting block so I may get astride my damned horse?”

Cromwell was no soldier and he had no intention of becoming one now. He would stay in the camp with a retinue of servants and a light guard. He called out to Henry, “I beg you to stay back, well out of harm’s way. You are the treasure of Brittania whose value cannot begin to be measured. You must not be injured or taken or your kingdom will surely crumble.”

Henry began to mount his steed and said, “You are a sycophantic toad, Cromwell. Have I told you that of late?”

“Just yesterday, if I recall, Your Highness.”

John could hear the clopping of a thousand horses and the rumble of artillery carriages but still couldn’t get eyes on the English through the soupy conditions.

“They’re close,” he whispered to Antonio.

“I hope they cannot smell you,” Antonio said.

“With you guys around, all they’ll smell is shit.”

Simon snorted and patted his horse’s neck to keep the beast from getting skittish. Caravaggio reached for one of the grenades in his saddlebag and inspected it for the hundredth time.

“Don’t drop it,” John said. “It’ll be hard to paint without arms and legs.”

“I remain impressed by the beautiful design.”

“I always told my men not to fall in love with their weapons. They’re only tools to get a job done.”

Garibaldi had been persuaded to stay at the rear and leave the initial assault to younger, more agile men but he grumbled and fussed as each squad assembled and galloped off into the mist.

John’s plan was in full swing.

Twenty squads of thirty to fifty riders each fanned out to the north, the east, and the west with the intention of snaring the English in a noose. Lacking any effective form of battlefield communication, John would send a signal, and then in guerilla fashion, implementation would be in the hands of each squad.

He checked his watch, not to aid him this morning, but to remind him he had only six days to get Emily back to England.

“When?” Antonio asked.

John strained his ears. The English army was getting closer. “Soon.”

Just before dawn a German rider galloped into Barbarossa’s camp with news that the Russians had arrived during the dead of night and were grouping nearby. Stalin and his delegation would be arriving any time.

Emily awoke inside her wagon in a state of nervous anticipation. It had been a particularly difficult night and Andreas complained that her restlessness had robbed him of his usually sound sleep.

“Is it because of what the old monk told me?” he asked her, perplexed. “Is it because he said, ‘Thirty?’”

“Yes.”

“What does it mean, thirty?”

“It means a lot, Andreas,” she said. “It’s a very good number. It means I’m not alone.”

“Of course you are not alone. Andreas is here. Many others are outside the wagon.”

Nothing would come from trying to explain more. The simple eunuch wouldn’t understand in a million years, and truth be told, she didn’t understand what was happening either. Who was this monk? Who had sent him? If someone had made the crossing from Earth, who was it and how had it been accomplished? How had she been found in France? Was it possible to return to Earth or would her hopes be dashed?

“Could you just untie me so I can go outside and have a bit of a wash?” she asked.

He trundled over and unlocked the chain that tethered her to the bedframe and led her outside. The air was cool and the camp was shrouded in mist. On her way to the privy she saw soldiers preparing themselves for war by strapping weapons to their waists, saddling horses, kicking dirt on their cooking fires. Inside the privy tent she heard their crude remarks about what they’d like to do with her if given half the chance and when she emerged to splash herself at the water trough she stared down the nearest ones with as much venom as she could muster.

A commotion rippled through the camp.

She saw the soldiers around her suddenly ignore her and point toward the sound of approaching horses, saying, “Are they here?” and, “Yes, it’s them, I am sure,” and, “Keep your pistol cocked. They cannot be trusted.”

Emily turned to Andreas and asked what they were talking about.

“The Russians, I reckon,” he said. “I heard they were coming.”