Coleman left the room, giving me my first look at Hauser since we’d gotten to the hospital. Although it had only been a week, he looked like a different man. He’d always been a stocky, healthy-looking man. Now his face looked gaunt and he was jittery, like he’d had too much coffee and not enough sleep.
He still had the same defiance in his eyes, though. He glared at Coleman’s back as the taller man left the room. “Who’s that punk?” His voice was weak, almost raspy.
“Sorry about that. It wasn’t my idea.” I took a closer look at him. “You look like hell. They treating you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” Hauser rubbed his sore wrist. “Just worn down, is all. They haven’t even let us go outside. Say it’s for my own good. Yesterday, I tried to go for a walk around the grounds, and the second I stepped outside, three guys with Thompsons damn near shot me.”
I’d seen the gunmen myself. “I guess it’s a more secure building than we thought. They’re just doing their job. They still leaning on you about your German friends?”
“Nah. They finished questioning us about that stuff a couple of days ago. Guess they liked what I told them because they offered me a job, if you can believe that. Here I was worried they were going slap the cuffs on me, and they say they’re going to put me on the payroll.”
It was the first I’d heard of it. “What kind of job?”
“They say they’re still trying to figure that out. Had a goddamn head shrinker in with me yesterday asking me all these stupid questions. I would’ve thrown the bastard out the window if they didn’t have bars on them.”
I smiled. Hauser was still Hauser. “Just do whatever they want. Like you said, you’re lucky you’re not in jail.”
“Yeah, lucky me.” He looked at my bag on the bed. “You leaving?”
“Your sparring partner out there came to bring me home. What about you? They say when you’re getting out of here?”
“To be determined is all they say, which is fine for now. They treat us pretty good now that we’ve told them everything we know. They keep pumping me for information about Burnitz, though. Guy seems to have them spooked. They think he’ll try to find us if they let us loose.”
Burnitz again. “What do you think?”
“I know everyone in the group was afraid of him,” Hauser admitted. “The countess. Dr. Otto. Hell, even Tessmer didn’t like to be around him. I figured he was just a creep until he started building up the camp. That’s when I saw how nuts he really was. The fence line? The tower? The bonfires and the flags? All his idea. He even had the kids broken up into groups and close-order drilled them. I heard he took some of the older kids into the woods for overnight marches, but I never saw that myself. He’s a nut, but I don’t know if I should be afraid of him. I’m more worried about the people running around here. Or those who aren’t here.”
I didn’t know what he meant, and it bothered me. “Quit talking in riddles. You’re making my head hurt.”
“When we first got here, your buddy Van Dorn was here all the time. That priest friend of his, too. Now he’s gone and so is the collar. Now you’re leaving. It doesn’t feel right, Charlie. Something’s off. I know it.”
I put my .38 on top of my stuff, closed my case, and pulled it off the bed. My right side complained a little, but not enough to make me stop. “That’s just your cabin fever talking. Take my advice and do what they say. I don’t know what’s going on around here, either, but I know Mr. Van Dorn. He always has a reason for doing what he does. Just don’t lie or hold anything back. Mr. Van Dorn doesn’t like it when people lie.”
“Tell that to Tessmer. You should see what they’re doing to that guy. Won’t let him sleep. Won’t let him eat. Hell, I thought you and I did some bad things for Carmichael. These guys make us look like milkmaids.”
“Then I guess we’re lucky we’re on their side, aren’t we?”
That was the first time I’d thought of myself as part of anything bigger than just me and Mr. Van Dorn. Once you started using terms like “we” and “us,” it was only a matter of time before you found yourself part of an organization. That’s how it had happened with me and Chief Carmichael and the Tammany boys. It felt like it was happening again, even though I still didn’t know who the hell “us” was.
Coleman appeared in the doorway behind Hauser and pointed at his watch. “Time to go, sir. Now.”
To Hauser, I said, “Take care of yourself, Steve. I’ll call tomorrow to see how you’re doing. I’ll pull some strings to get them to let me talk to you.”
I started to leave, when Hauser grabbed my arm. He’d always been a powerful man for his size, with a hell of a grip. But his time at the facility had definitely taken something out of him. Not just out of his body, but his soul. I could see it in his eyes when he said, “Watch yourself out there, Charlie. I mean it. Something’s wrong.”
Coleman pushed Hauser out of the way and took my bag from me. “We need to go, sir.” He placed his hand on my back and moved me into the hall. I didn’t see any reason to stop him.
I didn’t look back at Hauser, either. I didn’t dare. I didn’t want to see that look in his eyes again.
***
Coleman put me and my bag in the backseat, got behind the wheel, and drove down the road at a good speed. The motion of the car made me a little sick to my stomach, and I rolled down the window in case I got sick. The smell of cow shit hit me in the face and I damn near lost my breakfast.
The rebuke from Coleman came fast. “Roll up your window, sir. It’s tempered glass in case someone takes a shot at us. We believe you still might be a target.”
“Who the hell’s going to shoot me out here? A cow?”
Coleman didn’t laugh. “Roll up your window, sir.”
The nausea had passed anyway, so I did what he wanted. It was a long drive back to New York and I didn’t want to argue.
Besides, some of the things Hauser had said were beginning to gnaw at me. I decided to make with some small talk. “Tell me your story, Coleman. Where are you from?”
Coleman kept his eyes on the road. “I work for Mr. Van Dorn. He doesn’t like us to talk about it much, not even among ourselves.”
“Us?” I repeated. “Ourselves? Sounds like a lot of people.” I remembered what I’d been thinking about back in my room at the hospital. About “us,” so I decided to try it on for size. “How many of us are there, anyway?”
“Mr. Van Dorn will tell you everything you need to know when he feels the time is right. All I was assigned to do was get you out of there safely before—”
He stopped talking and kept looking at the road.
If he’d hoped I’d missed it, he was wrong. “Before what?”
“Before one o’clock, sir. He wanted us to be back in New York for dinner.” He tried a smile. “We’re a few minutes ahead of schedule. Mr. Van Dorn will be pleased.”
But the smile didn’t wash. I was going to press the issue when I saw two cars barreling up the road toward us. Coleman hit the gas and drove onto the grass to avoid them.
I looked at the people in the cars as they passed us. Both cars had five men jammed into them.
One of the men looked damn familiar. More familiar than I wanted to believe.
“Who the hell are they?”
Coleman glanced at me in the rearview mirror as he kept driving. “They’re replacements, sir. The interrogations of the Germans are taking a new phase. Don’t worry. Like I said, we’re ahead of schedule.”
More things Hauser had told me began to come together. Neither Van Dorn nor Father Mullins were around. The goon who showed up without warning to pull me out of there. The guards who wouldn’t let Hauser walk around a guarded, fenced-in area.
Hauser was right. Something was up, but I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with a relief team.
I pulled my bag closer to me and popped
it open as I said, “I think I forgot to pack something, Coleman. I need to go back.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, sir. The transition needs to be seamless. Your presence would only muck things up. Don’t worry about your stuff. Just tell Mr. Van Dorn what you missed and we’ll have it sent to you in the morning.”
I noticed he took a double take in the rearview mirror, but not at me. He checked his side mirror, too, before looking at the road.
I looked behind me and saw a thin wisp of dark smoke snaking up from behind a hill. From where I judged the hospital was located.
Something was wrong.
I pulled the .38 from my bag and stuck it behind Coleman’s right ear. “Turn around, asshole. We’re going back.”
Coleman didn’t even flinch. He just hit the gas. “That’s not going to happen, sir. Everything is in hand and happening according to plan. It’s none of your concern. Mr. Van Dorn will explain everything when we get back to New York.”
“Maybe your ears are clogged, Junior.” I thumbed back the hammer on the .38. “I can help with that. Last chance. Turn the car around.”
Coleman grinned in the mirror. “We’re already going over fifty miles an hour. You shoot me at this speed, you’ll kill us both.”
“You, yes. Me, maybe. I’m in the backseat, remember?” I jammed the barrel against his head as hard as I could. “You want to take that chance?”
I braced for Coleman to slam on the brakes. He surprised me by bringing the car to a gradual stop and putting it in park. “Shoot me if you want to, but going back there is a bad idea.”
I pulled the gun away so he couldn’t grab it, but kept it aimed at his head. “Why?”
Coleman kept looking at me in the mirror. “Because we weren’t having any luck finding Burnitz or his crew, so we decided to flush them out. Those two cars that almost ran us off the road are proof that it worked. Those sorry sons of bitches are driving into a trap.”
Any effects of the medication they’d been feeding me burned right off. “You told them where we were holding Tessmer and Otto, didn’t you?”
“We leaked word of where they were being held, and waited to see if anyone was listening. Our spies told us that Burnitz got a group of his thugs together to storm the hospital today to rescue them. It was set for one o’clock, which they believed was right in the middle of a shift change.” Coleman grinned. “We’ve got twenty soldiers in that place right now, regular army, with automatic weapons. Burnitz and his goons won’t know what hit them. Hell, they’re probably already dead.”
“Bullshit. There’s no way Mr. Van Dorn would allow something like that to happen.”
Coleman turned all the way around and looked at me. “Who do you think came up with the idea?”
I suddenly didn’t have the strength to lift the gun. Mr. Van Dorn couldn’t be that careless.
Coleman and I flinched as thunder rolled across the hills, rocking our car as the shockwave reached us. We both looked out the back window, and saw a thick plume of black and brown smoke billowing up from the hospital site.
Coleman suddenly didn’t look so confident anymore.
I asked a question I already knew the answer to. “None of our people had any artillery, did they?”
“No. Not even grenades.”
Son of a bitch. Sometimes, I hated being right. “Guess Burnitz brought his own. You got any guns in this heap?”
Coleman was already getting out of the car. “A Thompson, a shotgun, and several boxes of ammo in the trunk.”
I got out of the car, too. “Looks like we’re going to need them.”
Chapter 23
I had the Thompson on my lap and my .38 in its holster under my arm as we sped back to the hospital. Coleman had his .45 and the shotgun next to him up front.
“You sure this car’s bulletproof?”
Coleman kept his eyes on the road. “Built the same way Al Capone’s car was, so they tell me. Let’s hope they weren’t lying about that.”
I had a feeling we were going to find out soon enough. “You ever been in combat before?”
“I’ve had some training, but no, I was never in the army.”
I didn’t know what kind of training he had, but as long as he knew one end of a gun from the other, we’d have a chance. “When we get there, turn the car so the passenger side is facing the action. We come out the left side and use the car as cover. If there’s shooting, take your time and don’t rush the shot. Aim for the chest and shoot.”
A brown mist drifted across the road as we reached the main gate. The fence was smashed in and three men were dead next to the guard shack. They’d practically been cut in half by a burst from a Thompson.
The smoke cleared a bit as we reached the main building. A man backed into the road, firing up into the hospital. He bounced off the hood of our car and over the windshield as Coleman swerved to the left. The passenger side of the car faced the hospital, just like I’d told him to do.
Bullets raked that side of the car as we spilled out the driver’s side. Pistol and automatic gunfire filled the air. Coleman shut his door and took cover while I angled a bit further out to see who we’d hit.
The man was on his side, in a crumpled heap. He was wearing a coarse gray overcoat and didn’t look like any of the men I’d seen at the hospital. He reached for his Thompson and began to swing it in our direction.
I pulled my .38 and put two into his chest. I hoped to God he wasn’t one of ours.
Coleman cupped his hands over his mouth and tried to shout over the gunfire. “It’s Coleman and Doherty. Don’t shoot!”
Some of the gunfire stopped for a moment, but some still came our way. I belly- crawled to the trunk of the car and tried to see what we were up against.
I saw the back fence of the compound was a gnarled mess, charred as if it had been blown apart to make way for a truck that not only rammed the back of the hospital, but exploded on impact. That must have been the large explosion Coleman and I felt on the road.
The first several floors of the building had crumbled, with large chunks of smoldering steel and concrete littering the once-immaculate lawn. The two cars that had sped past us were across the green space, firing up into the wreckage of the hospital. Rounds struck exposed steel and broken masonry in the gaping hole of the hospital. Rounds fired from the ruin by soldiers who had survived the explosion slammed down into the cars. Some of Coleman’s men were still putting up a fight.
Not just Coleman’s men, I thought. My men, too.
Realizing the pistol was useless, I tucked it back in the shoulder holster and grabbed Coleman. “Edge around the front of the car. Stay low and focus your fire on the cars. Don’t shoot until you have something to hit. We need to conserve ammo.”
Coleman snaked around the hood of the car, staying low. With the Thompson, I dropped to a firing position behind the rear wheel of our car. Another Tommy gun opened up on Coleman the moment he appeared over the hood. The kid was forced to duck for cover again. He didn’t look or act like he’d been hit.
I saw that the shooter wasn’t hiding behind the two cars. He was firing from a side door to the hospital. That meant Burnitz and his people had already gotten into the building, and these bastards was covering them.
We had to get inside before Burnitz got away.
Coleman popped up again and fired blind in the direction of the hospital. The shotgun blast peppered the door, throwing the gunman back.
I aimed the Thompson at the door. I waited.
Coleman racked in another round as the gunman kicked the door open and stepped into the doorway to get a clearer shot.
He’d let his temper get the better of him.
I didn’t.
I fired two shots that caught him high in the chest, sending him back into the hospital for good. The ruined door swung limply on its hinges.<
br />
More gunfire rained down on the cars from the hospital. I heard a pop and a hiss from the invaders’ tires as our men in the hospital fired another volley into the cars.
One of the Germans rose just high enough for me to see the outline of his head and shoulders. I fired but missed.
But I’d seen why he stood up. A grenade was sailing through the air into the gaping ruin of the hospital.
“Grenade!” I bellowed, but it was too late. The damned thing exploded and I saw a Thompson clatter out of the broken concrete and wood, falling into the burning heap of the bomb truck.
Coleman didn’t wait for me to tell him what to do next. He pumped round after round into the cars, shattering glass and rubber and steel.
While he kept them pinned down, I scrambled to my feet and broke cover, running until I got enough of an angle on the men behind the car. I dropped and rolled behind a concrete bench on the edge of the green, and got back into a firing position.
Five Germans.
One on the ground, a pool of blood forming around his leg.
The other four scattered between both cars. All of them holding Thompsons. All of them waiting until the shotgun stopped firing.
The man with the leg wound was fiddling with a bag next to him. I saw him pull something from it. A grenade.
This time, I didn’t wait.
I squeezed the trigger and raked them with the Thompson. A bullet either went low or the clown dropped the grenade back in the bag because the bag exploded. I stopped firing and waited a few seconds for the smoke to clear. When it had, all five Germans were dead.
“Coleman!” I called out. “See anyone else out there?”
“No. You?”
I stayed prone and looked around. I didn’t see anything moving except the flowers and grass from a lazy wind. I listened as best I could, but all I heard was the burning and crackling of the exploded truck under the rubble.
I was going to tell Coleman I’d cover him as we went into the hospital. But I didn’t have to tell him. He was already running toward the side door.
The Fairfax Incident Page 20
