Unhinge the Universe

by Aleksandr Voinov

  Your trade is bullets, Sieg had once mocked him, mine’s paper.

  Who could know what the Allied codebreakers now had in their hands. Hagen himself didn’t know. It was sensitive enough information that it could only be entrusted to the care of a high-ranking officer like Sieg.

  Hagen forced himself to breathe evenly against the stress-fired panic swelling in his throat. His gaze caught on a toppled chair near a heavy wooden wardrobe. He opened the doors wider, but the wardrobe was empty. On the floor beside it, though, he found a book, open and facedown like it too was as defeated as the men downstairs. Hagen picked it up and shook it like an Allied soldier undoubtedly had just an hour or so ago, but nothing fell from the pages.

  He looked at the cover. Homer’s The Iliad. His brother read Ancient Greek fluently, though this was a Greek-German translation. It seemed like the most personal thing here, as distinctly Siegfried as the razor. Hagen tucked the book into a pocket, then righted the chair—why, he didn’t know.

  Paused.

  Dust on the chair seat.

  Hagen glanced up, frowned, and stepped on the chair, like somebody had before him.

  He stretched, and there, on top of the wardrobe—papers.

  Sieg, you tricky bastard.

  He gathered the papers. They looked official, complex, and encoded. He tucked them inside his jacket, right next to his body. It might not be everything, but these were important enough to hide. The Allies had only done a rush job, not bothering to comb the room for evidence.

  At least Hagen didn’t leave with completely empty hands. Though without the code . . . no, first things first.

  He closed the door on the fight that had happened here, and backed away from it. What now? Every man on this mission save Hagen was dead, and even then, there were no guarantees.

  Sieg would have waited for him. Maybe in another building or outside, but he wouldn’t have left when he knew Hagen was on his way into this. Not without arranging the rocks by the gate in a ring as a distress signal. If he was gone, then he’d left against his will.

  The mission had now become more complicated, but that was all. The goal was still to find Sieg and get him to safety. Only now he had to get him out of wherever the Allies had taken him first. Then he’d deliver Sieg and the papers to their destination and then back home. Failure wasn’t an option. This was family.

  John slammed the door hard enough to nearly shake its frame free from the building. The other men jumped, throwing each other wary looks and glancing upward as if they expected the skeletal church to cave in on top of them, completing the ruin of Saint Michel.

  “What is the matter with you, you fucking idiots?” He waved a hand at the door. “Why didn’t you run him over with a goddamned tank while you were at it?”

  Private Lawson showed his palms. “With all due—”

  “Someone get me a medic.” John clenched his teeth. “Son of a bitch needs help.”

  One soldier turned and dashed off. The others stared at John.

  Massaging the bridge of his nose, John snarled, “I came all this way to interrogate a prisoner, and you give him to me like this? What in God’s name possessed you idiots to beat him within an inch of his life before he’d had a chance to talk?” He glared at each of them in turn.

  One of the men cleared his throat. “With . . . with all due respect, sir, he wasn’t injured before. Not this badly.”

  John narrowed his eyes. “I’m assuming he didn’t do it to himself.”

  “No.” The man swallowed hard. “This morning. When he was transferred into our custody. H-he fought. Busted Private Manning’s nose and gave—”

  “I don’t want your goddamned excuses!” John glared at the man. “I don’t give a damn if he was trying to fuck your mother. The information he’s carrying is useless if you kill him. Is that clear?”

  “S-sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry.” John rolled his eyes. Apologies would not fix the damage that had been done, nor would chewing these idiots out stop the clock and keep the prisoner alive any longer. Exhaling hard, John went back into the makeshift interrogation room in the church’s cellar. A couple of chairs. A rickety table. A bare lightbulb suspended from the center of the ceiling by a fraying cord.

  And in one of the chairs, hands bound behind his back, was the Nazi that he had rushed across a hundred miles of godforsaken backwoods France to interrogate. With all the spies and saboteurs afoot, and German troops still not breaking, Allied leaders were desperate for any intel they could squeeze out of anyone who might have even the foggiest clue what was going on behind the German line. That was the only reason the lieutenant colonel had ordered the trip to this tiny scouting detachment. The sooner John had his hands on the bastard, the sooner they’d get their information.

  The Nazi didn’t look good. Not just because of that gray uniform—which did look better now that it had some blood down the front—but because his face was almost the color of the metal table in front of him. His head lolled to one side. Blood and spit ran from a corner of his mouth. How was John supposed to get anything useful out of him? So far, all he’d gotten was a name (likely a false one) and three German variations of “Go to hell, American pig.”

  But the intriguing thing was how far behind enemy lines he’d been captured. Burgundy had been liberated three months ago. And while some pockets of German resistance remained, an unattached Wehrmacht major on a jaunt in the French countryside made no sense.

  At the rate the color was leaving his face, there wouldn’t be much time to get the answer out of him.

  John swore under his breath and paced back and forth. They might as well have shot this one along with the others. Fucking morons. They had no idea that a prisoner like this one needed to be handled carefully no matter how belligerent he got. Officers carried orders, and thus, intelligence. Intelligence they’d take with them if they were beaten to death by a bunch of inept farm boys playing soldiers who—

  “Do you ever stop moving?” the Nazi asked in heavily accented, slurred English.

  “I will when you start talking.”

  A single sniff of dry laughter. “Then keep pacing, Armleuchter.” He spat blood on the floor, narrowly missing John’s boot.

  Armleuchter was a weird one—generic word for idiot, compounded out of “arm” and “chandelier,” so it made no sense whatsoever if taken apart. Together, though, it formed an insult that was effective and oddly genteel. Maybe there was a lesson there. The sum and its parts. John hadn’t managed to get on an equitable footing with him. Even badly hurt, the Nazi had responded with affronted pride at being handcuffed and disarmed, and protested the excessively rough treatment.

  John glanced back at the Nazi major—newly minted; the man was young, though he had earned three—count ’em, three—Iron Crosses, the Germans’ main bravery award, signified by a ribbon on his jacket button and a medal on his breast pocket. They all culminated in the Knight’s Cross situated just under his throat. Not exactly a paper pusher, or at least not just that.

  “The more time you lose . . .” The Nazi regarded him coolly from under heavy eyelids.

  “By the looks of you,” John said, “you’ve got less time than I do.”

  The Nazi started to speak, but the door opened, and one of the camp’s two medics entered the room.

  John pursed his lips. He gestured at the prisoner and stepped back.

  The medic looked the Nazi over. Prodded his abdomen, which pushed more half-strangled curses from the German’s bloody, paling lips. Then he stood, faced John, and the grim expression confirmed everything he already knew.

  John led the medic out of the room. Safely on the other side of the door, he lowered his voice to barely a whisper. “Can anything be done?”

  The medic shook his head. Speaking even more softly, he said, “He’s bleeding internally. You’re lucky you’ve had as much time with him as you have. He’ll be dead within the hour.”

  John swore. He nodded, gestured that the med
ic was dismissed, and went back into the room. “Good news, Kraut. Sounds like you’ll pull through. Which means we have all fucking night to talk.”

  The Nazi’s eyes strayed back across the walls, but the cellar room had no windows. No way to measure time—just one of the many tricks in the book to drive home the fact that he didn’t control his own fate anymore. John had radioed ahead for the prisoner to be kept someplace dark until he arrived. He just hadn’t expected the man to be in this condition.

  “The things you call talking.” The German sounded drowsy, weak, but maybe he wasn’t sharp enough anymore to notice how bad off he was. Maybe he’d speak once his willpower slipped and he was too confused to remember he wasn’t supposed to talk.

  “The codebreakers are already working on the papers that came in with you.” John folded his arms across his chest. “So why don’t—”

  “Then why do you need me to talk?” Something glinted in the prisoner’s eyes. Some knowing gleam that unsettled John, but he didn’t dare let it show. The Nazi’s lips pulled back across blood-stained teeth. “If your codebreakers are worth what you—” A deep, sickening cough interrupted him. He spat blood again and glared up at John. “If they’re worth what you pay them, they’ll know soon enough, won’t they?”

  John narrowed his eyes. “So they’ll know soon enough that those are bullshit, decoy papers?” The flicker of surprise in those glazed eyes told John exactly what he needed to know. Shit. He’d had a feeling the papers were fake. No officer worth what they paid him would be so careless.

  “You think I had time to . . . forge them?” The Nazi swallowed, cheeks tensing and eyes tearing up as he fought what was likely another one of those terrible coughs. “In the time it took them to slaughter my men?” A mocking eyebrow went up, though the effect was ruined by the extent of the bruising and the man’s white, nearly translucent flesh.

  “I don’t think you needed time to forge them.” John stepped closer, looming over the dying Nazi. “You’re no idiot, are you?” He reached for the Knight’s Cross. “Not with one of these?” The German’s lips tightened, his cheek rippling, and his eyes darkened in an unspoken “get your hands off that.” John grinned and yanked sharply, ripping the medal free from the band it dangled from.

  He let it drop to the floor, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as the German jumped at the sharp clang of metal hitting stone.

  “You had forgeries with you,” John said. “Didn’t you?”

  The German stared at the cruciform medal by his feet, eyes unfocusing, as if he was looking through it to a place beyond. Where he’d earned it, maybe, or when his commander had awarded it. Hell, with a major, maybe he remembered a handshake and a pat on the back from the Führer himself. He was young enough to be quite exceptional, from everything that John knew. But coming up against the real thing—the real beast—John felt like he couldn’t know enough about the Germans. Ever.

  “Despite that medal, you’re not stupid.” He stepped on the Knight’s Cross. “So you’re my shortcut.”

  He let his words sink in, noticed the unhealthy gleam of sweat on the waxy skin, which gave the thick scar on his cheek a sickly gleam. The Nazi was still with him, though, still responsive. He hadn’t escaped yet.

  “You’re not stupid, either.” The Nazi’s voice sounded far away. “Isn’t that impressive, how clever men are about killing each other? I can’t help but . . . marvel at it.”

  “And how clever are you about men killing each other?” John’s patience waned at the same rate the German’s color drained from his face. “What do you know, Nazi?”

  The prisoner laughed. It was the faint, dry sound of a dying man who knew damn well he was dying, and knew that he was taking his secrets to the grave no matter what John tried to do to convince him otherwise.

  John pinched the bridge of his nose. This was pointless. The German wasn’t going to talk, and if he did, whatever information he produced would probably be as reliable as whatever nonsense the codebreakers pulled from those papers.

  Minutes passed. Another of those wracking coughs that left the German gasping. It wasn’t his lungs that were going to kill him, just the blood loss. Maybe he should call back the medic and ask for a transfusion. Buy himself—and the German—more time.

  The German closed his eyes and seemed to struggle to keep his chin up. His posture relaxed somewhat, like a drunk. It made John want to kick him in the balls—not that that would help any.

  “One thing, American.” With what must have been a hell of a lot of effort, the German raised his head. “Do you listen?”

  John shifted his weight. “I’m listening.”

  “Do you have a priest? Catholic?” He sneered at John. “We are in a church, after all.”

  “I can get one, yes.”

  “You can.” The Nazi’s pale blue lips quirked into a weird little smile. “Will you bargain over my soul?”

  John slowly ran the tip of his tongue across his lower lip. He could bargain. He could dangle eternal damnation over this son of a bitch’s head until the very last moment. But to what gain?

  “Tell me how you got here. I’ll call the priest.”

  The Nazi looked down at his feet, head lolling forward. “We hit bad weather. The pilot pushed south into France. We took enemy fire. The plane went down. The pilot died in the crash. I radioed my position, asking for help. It—” He coughed again. “It arrived.”

  That might explain what he was doing in this part of Europe—there had been reports of a small passenger plane crashing a few miles to the west, and the dead pilot was another piece of intel that matched. John itched to look at the wreckage. High-ranking officer traveling in secret, running into bad luck, and then? Ironic he’d walked away from a plane crash only to be beaten within an inch of his life by soldiers. But that didn’t matter now. What was his mission? Who was this guy?

  “What was your destination?”

  The Nazi didn’t respond.

  John grabbed him by the throat, forced him to look up.

  “You—promised.” He even felt like death to the touch, skin cool and clammy.

  With a sharp sigh, he released the Nazi, went to the door and leaned out. “Get the priest. Now.”

  “Yes, sir.” Boots obediently started down the hall. “Get Father Charpentier. The captain wants to see him.”

  John faced the German again. “He’ll be here in a moment.”

  “Thank you.” The German looked at him, eyes clearly unable to keep focus. “It is getting . . . cold.” He mumbled in German, slurring to the point that John couldn’t understand him. He trailed off. Then he shook his head, probably lost his train of thought because he didn’t pick up the sentence again.

  John wanted nothing more than to grab the Kraut by the jacket and shake him until he gave up what he wanted, but the only thing coming out of this prisoner’s mouth was more blood. As if for emphasis, the prisoner coughed again, a deep, wracking sound that made John’s chest hurt just hearing it. Blood mixed with spit ran down the man’s chin and onto his uniform. He didn’t seem to care.

  A quiet knock on the door turned his head. Father Charpentier stepped in, a Bible tucked under his arm.

  John glanced at the Nazi, who didn’t seem to be aware of anything, let alone the presence of the man he’d requested.

  The priest’s lips pulled tight as he eyed the man in the chair. Even a man of God probably couldn’t help but be tempted to commit grave sins on a Nazi, especially when that man of God was all that remained of this gutted French village. If the good Father gave in to that temptation now, God Himself would probably turn a blind eye.

  He looked at John, and John muttered, “He’s all yours.”

  He left the priest to give the slumping prisoner his last rites. Hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, he stormed out, avoiding eye contact with any of the sentries. Or the men who’d been responsible for the Nazi’s condition in the first place; they wisely didn’t approach him, or he’d have
put the first one to speak on the ground. And likely kept him from getting up any time soon. Fuck being court-martialed; he’d just lost the most valuable intel asset he’d gotten his hands on in weeks. The war was getting much too hot in Belgium and the Low Countries to let valuable information slip between their fingers.

  He stomped up the stone steps that led to the world above where the winter wind snapped at his face. One of the drab green tents had been set up right alongside the west wall of the stone church. Snow blew off the camouflage netting, and John ducked his head to avoid getting it into his eyes.

  He leaned against the centuries-old stone wall and pulled his cigarettes and matches from his pocket. The wind blew out the first match, and John released a whispered curse and a cloud of breath as he lit a second. This time, his hand kept the wind from the flame long enough for the cigarette to catch.

  “Get anything out of him?”

  The voice behind him sent a pleasant shiver through John, and as he blew out a lungful of smoke, he turned to see Corporal Bennett—Michael to John and no one else—coming across the snow-covered ground. He was the only one here John knew, being the man John had handpicked to accompany him from the base.

  John brought the cigarette to his lips again. “Nothing except blood and Nazi bullshit.”

  Michael laughed dryly. “It’s only been a few hours. You have time.”

  John grunted around the cigarette. “I do. He doesn’t.”

  “Oh. Shit.” Michael stood beside John, face nestled into the collar of his coat and hands tucked into his pockets. “After all this—”

  “Yes.”

  “So what now? Any idea what he was doing all the way out here?”

  John shook his head. He blew a cloud of smoke out into the freezing air. “I don’t get it. Said his plane crashed. Could have just run out of fuel. But then it gets interesting: he’s alone, he tells them where he is, and next thing, they send five paratroopers behind enemy lines to escort him like he’s something special?”

  “You think he is special, though, don’t you?”