"Are the other men…dead?" Amelie said.
"Yes. Very."
"And you? You are naked?" she said.
"Very. But don't get any ideas."
They found the driver of the taxi slumped over in the seat, his body riddled with bullets. "The poor man," Amelie said.
"He told them about us," Pryce said. "If they hadn't killed him, I would have."
The Germans car was a new Mercedes, black and clean and filled with gas. Price put their bags in the back of the car and got in, making sure there were no other vehicles coming or going before he started the engine and headed down the road. They followed the Moselle River all the way to the German border. It was morning by the time they arrived and the sun was reflecting off the border's steel fence that stretched for miles in either direction from a small, makeshift gatehouse.
There were two bored-looking guards standing near the gate and another inside the gatehouse, looking out at them through the window. Parked along the gatehouse wall was a large motorcycle with a gleaming gas tank. A Zundapp, Pryce thought. Very nice.
He pulled the Mercedes up to the gatehouse and rolled down the window as the guards approached on either side. Pryce nodded at the one at his window and said, "Guten tag, parteigenosse. Thank you for keeping the snail-eaters out of the Fatherland."
"Your papers," the guard said, extending a black-gloved hand.
Pryce smiled and said, "Of course." Amelie handed him the papers and he held them out the window for the guard, saying, "It cannot be said enough how much we appreciate what you are doing for the country."
The guard looked at the papers, then bent down to compare them to Pryce and Amelie. Finally he looked back at the gatehouse and shrugged.
The gatehouse door opened slowly and the man emerged from within, his superior Leutnant insignias bright silver against his black uniform. He said something to his guards in German that Pryce could not hear and stopped in front of the Mercedes, eyeing it carefully. After a moment, he waved at the guards and said, "Get them out of the car."
The guards grabbed the doors and Pryce said, "Forgive me, kamerads, of course we will comply, but is it at all possible if my wife continues to sit? She is not feeling well and I am afraid she will get sick."
"No!" the Leutnant barked. "Both of you out, now." The Leutnant watched as they both exited the vehicle, his right hand moving toward the handle of a stick grenade that was thrust in his belt. He tapped the handle impatiently, as if had been hoping they'd refuse and he could have tossed the grenade in through the car window and watched it explode. He looked at Pryce and said, "What is your name?"
"Hans Vogel and this is my wife, Lena."
"And where did you get this vehicle, Herr Vogel?"
"Actually, it is a funny story," Pryce said with a sheepish grin. He took a moment to look at where the men were standing, seeing the guard on his right holding a machine gun, and the guard closest to Amelie who had a rifle aimed at her now. Amelie turned toward Pryce with eyes so wide he could see the white around the green circumference of each iris.
The Leutnant folded his arms and said, "Somehow, I do not think it will be that funny. I also think your name is not Hans Vogel. So I will ask again, before things become very bad for you and this pretty young woman, how did you get this vehicle?"
"Well," Pryce said, "If you really must know, I took it from two Nazi schwanzlutschers who were busy sodomizing their commanding officer. It was a Leutnant, I believe, and mein gott, was he enjoying it."
The Leutnant's eyes widened in outrage and he opened his mouth to roar for his men to kill Pryce, but just at that moment, he vanished from within his clothes.
A shirt and pants and socks and shoes and undergarments fluttered to the ground right before the stunned Germans and before any of them could speak, Pryce reappeared behind the guard closest to him, naked. He grabbed the German by the back of the head and snapped his neck violently with one swift twist.
"Omega!" the Leutnant screamed. "Shoot him!"
The guard standing beside Amelie raised his rifle and fired directly at both Pryce and the other guard, but Pryce was already gone.
"Kill the woman!" the Leutnant ordered.
Amelie screamed as Pryce's naked body materialized beside her, shoving her out of the way in time to grab the German's rifle and twist it away. He picked the man up into the air as easily as if he were lifting a small child and hurled him into the woods. The German's screams rang out as he flew sideways into the trunk of a loud tree, all of the bones in his spine snapping loud enough to scatter the birds from their nests for miles around.
"You bastard," the Leutnant hissed.
Pryce advanced on the man, bearing down on him until he grabbed the front of the Leutnant's fancy uniform shirt and twisted it, holding him fast. He reached down for the stick grenade in the man's belt and yanked it free, only needing his thumb to spin the device's metal cap off and arm it. He smiled as the grenade's fuse began to hiss and said, "Are you ready to die, kamerad?"
"Throw it!" the Leutnant cried. "You'll kill us both. Get rid of it!"
Pryce held the Leutnant with one hand the grenade with the other and started to laugh. He lifted the grenade over the man's head and let sparks rain down onto the Leutnant's head, sizzling his hair. "How many seconds is it again before this thing blows up? Stop screaming. You're distracting me and making me lose count."
"Omega?" Amelie called out worriedly. "Omega! Throw the grenade!" The agent wasn't listening, and his face had grown dark and eager, as if he wanted to be holding it when it blew. The fuse was smoking black as it neared the explosives and she ducked down behind the Mercedes and covered her ears.
The Leutnant screamed "Throw it!" and Pryce flipped the grenade in his hand and jammed the stick handle into the man's open mouth. He grabbed the Leutnant with both hands and spun him in the air so fast his feet lifted off the ground, hurling him like a shot putter into the gatehouse.
The explosion was deafening.
Glass and wood erupted in every direction, blowing out the Mercedes' windshield and windows, raining shards down on Amelie as she rolled over and tried to get under the car to shield herself. By the time she came back up, the air was thick with black smoke. She coughed and squinted at the wreckage, seeing nothing but rubble from the gatehouse and the German's charred body.
Pryce walked back into the smoke, coming toward her from wherever he'd teleported when the explosion happened. He was naked still and searching for his clothes. He found his shirt and picked it up, deciding that it would be more useful as a towel, and began wiping the soot and grime and blood off his chest and arms. He looked at Amelie and said, "Can you get my pants? They're over there."
Amelie was too busy staring at the trickle of blood dripping out of Pryce's nose when he called her name and asked her for his pants again. "Of course," she said, turning to look for them. She picked up the pants and carried them over to him, still staring at the blood. "Were you injured? You're bleeding." She pulled a white embroidered handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it to his nose.
Pryce pushed her away and put his pants on, hurrying to get them buttoned. "It's nothing," he said.
"Wait, just one more," she said. She pressed the handkerchief to his nose again and said, "Do not be a baby. I won't hurt you."
Pryce frowned as she checked his nostrils, making sure that he was all right. "We have to go, Amelie," he said. "There might be more Germans in the area."
"All right, all right," she said. "It's not my fault if I worry about you. You've saved my life twice now."
Pryce ignored her as he turned to head toward the Zundapp. He lifted it off the wall and draped his leg over it and cranked the pedal to get the engine going. The motorcycle roared to life between his legs and he said, "Come on. Get on, we have to hurry."
"Coming!" Amelie said.
She went the long way around the ruined Mercedes and flicked her hand out, casting the bloody handkerchief just behind the car's rear wheel. S
he hurried around the side and hopped on behind him. Pryce handed her a pair of goggles and their eyes met for a moment. Amelie wrapped her hands around his sides and pressed her lips to his cheek to give him a quick kiss and shouted, "Now let's go!"
The gatehouse was over a quarter-mile away and surrounded by dense woods, but whatever had exploded there was loud enough and big enough to send the troop of SS sonderkommandos scattering around the campsite, grabbing for their weapons.
Each of them stopped instantly at the sight of the tall, fit, blonde haired man who calmly stood up and raised a black gloved fist in the air.
Obersturmbannfuhrer Victor Kramer cocked his head in the direction of the explosion and listened. He did not move, and neither did his men. He did not speak, and neither did his men. A motorcycle roared to life in the distance and sped away, entering through the gates of the Fatherland and travelling exactly in the direction Kramer had predicted.
All was going according to plan.
Kramer fixed his stiff uniform collar and huffed on the silver totenkopf pin on his hat, taking a moment to polish it with the sleeve of his jacket. The sonderkommandos assembled into formation behind him. They were eager, frothing at the mouth like hungry dogs. One of them muttered, "How many times must we stand back like cowards and watch this Amerikaner schweinekerl kill German soldiers?"
Kramer ignored the comment and lowered his fist, leading the men into the woods, heading toward the gatehouse. They walked with their guns ready. It was not beyond Omega to know they were coming and have a trap laid out for them. Over the years Omega had proven to be a devastating opponent, and Kramer's eyes glistened with tears of joy when Der Fuhrer personally assigned him to capture the man.
I will bring you Omega's head on a stick, Herr Hitler. And after that, you will offer me France, or England, or perhaps even the Americas.
Kramer stopped at the sight of a long path blazed in the woods. No, he thought. Through the woods. There was a thirty foot scar of fresh, overturned earth in the ground that lead from the gatehouse to the base of a massive redwood tree. Kramer turned and looked at the tree, where the body of a mangled German soldier was wrapped around it the wrong way, each of his limbs bent at odd angles. Whatever had thrown the man from the gatehouse to here had not been human. The soldier's arms and legs were limp as if the bones inside them, the man's very skeletal structure, had been pulverized on impact.
Kramer turned away and kept walking, remaining stoic. It was important for the men to never see him look concerned or weak. He had no doubt there were some within his own ranks who were seeking to improve their own positions in the Nazi party. Kramer had once been the same.
He lead them on the path of turfed grass and vegetation until they came out of the woods and stopped at the sight of second dead German. This one was naked and his neck was snapped. Several sonderkommandos cursed bitterly, but Kramer waved them on.
The gatehouse was destroyed. A tall column of black, acrid smoke spilled out of its crumbled walls and the air stunk with the smell of burning flesh. Kramer covered his face and inched toward the building and saw the Leutnant left in charge of the site inside, now a blackened corpse.
Kramer turned to face his men, "Agent Deomai was ordered to obtain a sample of the Amerikaner's blood and deposit it here for us. Spread out and find it. Do not allow your German brothers to have died in vain."
He watched them begin to search and then rolled a cigarette with the tips of his fingers, licking the paper and twisting until it was smokeable. He took his hat off and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. The devastation was complete. Perfect. Agent Omega had done exactly what he was rumored to be capable of. Kramer grunted in grim admiration, then thought, it would have been more effective if Omega had defiled the bodies. Something to truly strike fear into the hearts of the German. Perhaps that is a weakness I can exploit, Kramer thought. Perhaps Omega has all the power in the world and lacks the fundamental, necessary conviction to use it properly.
What a man with an iron will might accomplish if blessed with such a gift.
One of the men ducked down behind a black Mercedes parked at the gate and said, "Obersturmbannfuhrer, over here. I have something."
Kramer tossed his cigarette and walked around the car, telling the man not to touch it. He bent down and looked, seeing the white handkerchief laying on the ground and the dark red blood stain covering the fabric.
Soon, Omega. Soon I will see much more of your blood.
Four Nazi brown-shirts patrolled Frankford train station, walking up and down the platforms, checking the passengers' identification cards. Amelie turned aside and pressed herself up against a column at the station, getting out of view. "There is a hotel nearby," she said. "We can come back in the morning, when there won't be so many guards."
"We can still get on," Pryce said, eyeing the guards. There was a hunger in his eyes, she saw. An eagerness not just to continue the mission, but perhaps also an eagerness to do battle with the enemy. An eagerness for blood. "I can get us past them," he said.
Amelie touched his arm and said, "I am tired, Sean. I need to take a bath and put on clean clothes. I want to sleep in a real bed. Tell me, what is one evening?"
He looked at the guards, watching them even as Amelie put her arm through his and pulled him away from the column and out of the train station.
Later that night, after a fine dinner at the hotel and a bottle of red wine, she lay in bed next to him, tossing and turning. She rolled over to face him and brushed her foot against his shin, tickling the hair on his leg with her toes. She tickled his chest with her fingers and moved in closer to him, squishing her breasts against his body.
"We need to stay focused, Amelie," he said.
"Do you know what I like best about this work?" she whispered. "Sometimes, I get to be a whole different person. Just a character in a play. Nothing that person does matters, because it is not real and it is not me, do you see? It is just the character who lies and steals and kills and makes love. But tonight, do you know who I want to be? I want to be Lena Vogel and I want to make love in this hotel room to my husband, Hans."
Pryce stared up at the ceiling as she spoke and stayed quiet long enough that she touched his face and tried to kiss him, but he stopped her and said, "I don't operate that way, Amelie. We won't be playing house tonight, or any other night, so go to sleep."
Amelie pushed away from him disgust and pulled the covers up to her chin. She scowled at him and said, "Do you know what you are? Just some stupid little boy who can do magic tricks that happen to kill people. You look like a child and you act like a child! When your balls finally drop you will realize what you missed tonight. You will someday come and beg me to pay you the slightest attention but then it will be too late and I will laugh at you, little boy. I will laugh."
Pryce tucked the pillow under his head and turned over. Soon, he was asleep.
The next morning, Pryce sipped his coffee and kept his eyes fixed on the window while Amelie munched on a piece of buttered toast, her eyes glued to him now. The night spent on opposite sides of the bed had only increased her interest and resolve. "Where did you get that scar across your cheek?" she said.
He put down his cup and turned to look at her, "Here in France. Fighting."
"Fighting in France?" she said. Had he been involved in the resistance? Had he been part of some covert mission that was never reported? Her interested was piqued then, and she leaned forward and whispered, "What battle?"
Pryce sipped the last remaining coffee from his cup and said, "It was during the Hundred Day Offensive, at St. Quentin's Canal."
Amelie rolled her eyes and dropped her toast on the plate in disgust. "You know, if you are going to lie to me, you could at least bother to get your wars correct. The Hundred Day Offensive happened before either of us was born, Mister Pryce."
Pryce set down his cup in the saucer and said, "I apologize, Miss Brevot."
"Do you want to die?" she said suddenly.
; He looked back at her in surprise, "What?"
"I said, do you want to die? That little stunt you pulled at the gatehouse yesterday with the grenade put both of our lives in jeopardy. I do not want to continue this mission with some fool who has a death wish. I will call my command and tell them you are not able to continue, simple as that."
"Listen, I'm going to Hillersleben with or without you," Pryce said. "I certainly don't need you. If you want to assist in rescuing that traitor you call a brother, fine. If not, that's fine too. Just be warned, I have no personal interest in whether he lives or dies. That usually means the other person doesn't fare too well."
"You really are a bastard, Sean," she said.
"It's a cold, cruel world, Miss Brevot. Get used to it."
There were still too many brown-shirts at the train station, checking ID cards. Ultimately, Pryce decided they would take the Zundapp the rest of the way. He asked Amelie where they could get enough petrol to complete the journey and she mumbled, "Figure it out yourself, since you are so special."
He watched her walk off, more amused than anything.
He had been alive a long time, and of course there had been other women. Nothing serious, of course, and most of his time had been spent fighting. It had taken years to work out all of the rage he felt from losing his life at St. Quentin's Canal, from being locked away, and losing the woman he loved. It felt like the world had been stolen from him and all he was good for was tearing the innards out of despicable people anymore.
He'd slowly sealed off the compartments of himself that cared. That felt pain. That felt loss. All of the women he'd known had been for convenience. To pass the time. To alleviate his sense of isolation in a world that had gone strange and unexplainably dark. And then, in the morning after, when the women were lying next to him in bed and the sunlight hit their faces just right and he thought, for one brief moment, that he could start a new life, he forced himself to leave.
When he looked at Amelie Brevot, he saw a fragile creature so heart-breakingly beautiful that he could barely stand to look at her. Behind her large, batting eyes, and pouting lips he saw a wounded woman who could barely take one more loss. In her own way, she was as deeply embedded in secrets and war as he was. Unlike him, she wanted out.
Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever Page 5
