Blackbone

by George Simpson

  Gilman frowned then finally nodded. Behind him, Steuben muttered, “Thank you, Major.”

  Steuben stood outside the Krankenhaus as the MP detail summoned by Gilman double-timed down the slope and ran up the steps inside. Curious prisoners were slouched outside the huts. Catching Steuben’s eye, a few gestured with their hands, “What’s up?” Steuben ignored them. Borden emerged from the rear door with Loring Holloway. Gilman held the door open so Steuben could see the arrangement inside.

  Kirst was stretched out on the cot as they had left him. MPs were stationed one at the cubicle, one at the rear door, and the rest deeper inside the ward as relief. Satisfied, Steuben nodded to Gilman and backed off. Gilman shut the door and said, “Any problems tonight, Major, don’t hesitate to scream bloody murder.”

  “At the top of my lungs, Herr Kommandant.”

  Gilman prodded Loring Holloway and, with Borden hefting her suitcase, he followed her out of the camp. Watching them go, Steuben saw the way she glanced at Gilman, and the way Gilman ignored her. Steuben smiled to himself and contemplated how he would handle her. Mentally, he had her pants off and her legs spread on the bed before the image of his wife intruded.

  He walked back to his men. Bruckner met him with Churchill on a short leash, several loops of it wrapped around his wrist. After that brush with Hopkins, he was taking no chances: he expected reprisals, and he knew Churchill would be an easy, cheap target.

  “What’s going on with Kirst?” he asked Steuben.

  Steuben thought carefully before replying. It wouldn’t do to describe everything that had happened in the Krankenhaus. That would most certainly provoke panic among his men. “They have agreed to isolate him,” Steuben said. “They will keep him under guard tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “To prove to us that he’s no spy. To put our minds at ease.”

  Bruckner laughed.

  “Hans, listen to me. I want you to reassure the men that the Americans had nothing to do with the deaths of Eckmann and Gebhard. If there were a plot to exterminate us, Gilman would have to know. But he’s as concerned about the deaths as we are. I think we have to trust him.”

  “I see. Trust him, even if we all die.”

  “Hans, we are prisoners. They have no reason to murder us. If they were our prisoners, we wouldn’t do it to them.”

  “No?”

  Bruckner pulled Churchill along, motioning Steuben to follow and gesturing at the other men to leave them alone. He led Steuben behind the shower hut and stopped. Churchill sniffed at the foundation then took a healthy piss.

  “Do you really know what is going on in this war, Walter?”

  “We are losing it.”

  “Have you ever seen a concentration camp?”

  Steuben sighed impatiently. “No, Hans. No, I haven’t.”

  “I have. I’ve been inside one. I’ve tried to forget it, tried to put it out of my mind but, whenever I hear our friends carry on about their lofty ideals and their grand moments in this war... all I can think is, You fools! You don’t see. You haven’t been there.”

  At Steuben’s puzzled look, Bruckner managed a tense smile. “I know what you think of me. Hans Bruckner is afraid of his own shadow. Paranoid. He clings to that dog as if it’s the only reality left in his world.” He drew Churchill closer on the leash. The dog was licking up snow. “Well, if I appear suspicious of everything and everybody, there is a reason—rooted in what I saw in that concentration camp.”

  He looked Steuben in the eye. “If we could do it, Walter, so could the Americans.”

  “Do what?”

  “Because I was an accountant in private life, they made me a paymaster. In that capacity, I was sent to Auschwitz to deliver an SS payroll. Do you know about Auschwitz?”

  Steuben shrugged.

  “An industrial commune in the south of Poland, near Krakow. Also the site of a huge concentration camp where they... process people.”

  “Process?”

  “Where they kill them. The SS has a highly efficient system for disposing of Jews and Poles. Men, women, and children are collected and brought by rail to Auschwitz, housed in filthy barracks where they wait their turns to be executed. They are taken in lots to be gassed, then the bodies are burned...”

  Steuben’s ears were flushed with blood as he listened to Bruckner describe details of the showers that weren’t showers, the ovens, the sifting of ashes for valuables, for gold teeth and jewelry hidden in bodily orifices—He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  Bruckner continued, the details pouring out of him in a flood of disgusted remembrance. “But the worst of it, Walter, is that this processing is done by German soldiers—our men who went off to fight a war in the name of the Fatherland! This is how we have ended up! This is our legacy! This is what we will be remembered for!”

  “Hans—”

  “When I was captured in France and shipped to the United States, all I could think of was that the higher powers in this war—Hitler, Churchill, and Roosevelt—had somehow agreed that the innocent of all countries should be done away with and that, in America, they would put me in a camp like Auschwitz, beat me and starve me, then shove me in a chamber and gas me, then burn the remains! Can you imagine the state I was in when I arrived here? Until I realized there were no ovens, that the shower hut was truly a place where water and not gas ran through the pipes. Now, after Gebhard and Eckmann and Schliebert, I can’t help myself. I’m afraid. I don’t care what they tell you, Walter. I believe they are going to kill us.”

  Steuben was silent, feeling the chilling wind ruffle his hair. “Why don’t you... tell the others?” he said.

  Bruckner sagged against the wall. “We’re prisoners. We have little enough to cling to. To expose the truth about our aims in this war...” He shrugged. “If I could make every man in this camp see what I have seen, it would undermine their will to live”

  “Why should the SS do it?”

  “Walter... do you find it so hard to believe? They’ve always been free to kill enemies of the state. They have merely extended that sanction to include Jews, gypsies, Poles, and others.”

  “Russians?”

  “Of course. They processed nearly a hundred people while I watched. On a daily schedule, multiply that by five or ten, and that by as many concentration camps as there are in Europe—”

  “They’re doing it all over Europe?”

  “Of course.”

  “But it can’t just be the SS. The authority must come—”

  “From the top, yes.”

  Steuben stared at Bruckner, who gazed sadly at the ground. Though Steuben did not share Bruckner’s fear that the Americans were in collusion with Hitler and the British to massacre “undesirables,” he could without much trouble imagine Hitler and his lunatics coming up with the idea by themselves. He thought of all the commanding officers he had known in the Army. Not one would ever behave in a manner unbefitting a soldier. Their duty was war, not genocide. Yet the SS and the Gestapo—they could be persuaded to do such things. Some” would pay for the privilege. Kill Jews? Why not? Kill Poles and gypsies, certainly! How many? When? Where? Is this what Aryan supremacy was all about?

  Bruckner clucked to Churchill and they walked away together. Steuben stayed where he was, slumped against the wall of the shower hut. This was the black finale to his career, to the Army, to Germany itself. From this, Germany would never recover. And those idiots in charge probably thought no one would care if they murdered a hundred thousand Jews more or less. Maybe a million. But why stop at a million?

  Steuben thought of his family in Germany, in the path of the Russian advance, and of the reprisals the Russians would take using the concentration camps as an excuse. His family. Steuben was now sure that he would never see them again.

  Despite the winter chill, he was sweating. His shirt was sticking to his back. He wanted to strip his uniform off, tear it, and burn it! Wasn’t there some way he could recover the dignity those lunatics in
Berlin had stolen from him? Wasn’t there some way he could get back into the war and die a soldier’s death, an honorable death?

  Steuben pushed away from the wall and walked back to his quarters.

  Settled deep inside Kirst, the djinn rested, preparing itself for tonight. Its strength was nearing peak. Now its exploratory tendrils could invisibly range far beyond Kirst, almost to the five walls themselves. Now it could find fear anywhere in the camp, analyze it, and store it as reference for the nightform. So had it picked up the extraordinary emotional outpouring from Bruckner, and logged Steuben’s tortured response. It reveled in Bruckner’s paranoia. Through him it now had the means to create chaos. But tonight? First it would need more energy, more victims, build up just a bit more power before it could unleash the full terror.

  Testing the air in the cubicle, the djinn swirled in amusement. Hyssop, mandragora, rue, belladonna, and even death camass the stupid woman had scattered about the room. A few days ago the djinn might have been slowed by such folly, but no longer. Now it was too strong. Now nothing could stand in its way. Not all the power of Korbazrah or any other ancient mage. And never again, either!

  The djinn rolled up into Kirst’s eyes and studied the soldier standing guard at the door. Poor fellow, thought the djinn. It drew back and waited. Night was coming.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 22

  Snow flurries whipped between the huts for the rest of the day. There was no volleyball, no calisthenics, and only a few prisoners braved the storm to stretch their legs. With the weather getting worse, the Americans got lax about the enforced confinement at Hut 7.

  Lurking around the back of Hut 10, Mueller eyed the thick blanket of snow building up over the mine shaft entrance. To mark the rapidly disappearing spot, he threw a small branch up the slope. It would be disastrous if he and his companions lost valuable time tonight just trying to find the damned hole under the snow.

  A few minutes later he was in Bruckner’s quarters. “We’re going tonight,” he said.

  Bruckner listened to the storm outside and glanced significantly at Mueller.

  “We’ll be all right,” Mueller said.

  Bruckner nodded. “Good luck.”

  Mueller backed out and shut the door.

  Bruckner let his breath out slowly. Churchill was asleep at the end of his cot, curled up in a ball, his tail twitching against his nose. Outside, winter screamed at the camp.

  “Good luck,” Bruckner repeated to no one in particular.

  From a window in Hut 7, Bauhopf and von Lechterhoeven watched the rear of the Krankenhaus through the driving snow flurries.

  “What if we killed him?” Bauhopf said.

  “Difficult. Too many MPs in there.”

  “What if we get Heilbruner or Cuno to do it? Inject him with something?”

  “How do we get to them?”

  Bauhopf leaned against the wall thoughtfully. Then he took several deep breaths and abruptly slammed his hand through the window. Glass shattered. He gasped sharply. Wide-eyed, von Lechterhoeven stared as Bauhopf drew his hand back. There was blood welling from several cuts.

  “I’ve had an accident,” Bauhopf said through gritted teeth. “Better call the medic.”

  From the window in his quarters, Steuben watched absently as von Lechterhoeven, bundled in a heavy coat, thrashed through the deepening drifts and headed for the Krankenhaus. Steuben turned away, too preoccupied to wonder what he was up to.

  He lit a cigarette and smoked lying on his cot, going over what he had witnessed today. Strictly on the human level, demons notwithstanding, Kirst was a menace, a threat to camp morale. That alone made him dangerous. If he was somehow possessed by a demon on top of it, then perhaps this chitchat about eventually having to kill him wasn’t idle.

  Steuben smoked the cigarette through, then stubbed it out and got up. Climbing onto his cot, he reached up to the ceiling and shoved a board out of the way. His fingers felt around in the crawl space until they closed on steel. He brought down a knife fashioned out of prison cutlery and honed to a sharp edge, a little item he had confiscated from Dortmunder a few months back. It had seemed foolish to just turn it over to the Americans, so he had hidden it.

  Now perhaps there was a use for it. If anything happened tonight... Kirst, I have a present for you.

  In a foul mood, Hopkins finished reaming out Chilton for some minor infraction, the nature of which Hopkins forgot before the end of his tirade. But he didn’t forget to postpone Chilton’s leave. “The weather, Corporal. No one gets out in this shit.”

  “Yes, sir. Maybe after it lets up, sir.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Chilton saluted and fled before Hopkins could dream up something worse.

  Hopkins growled to himself. The story of how he had failed as a uniformed Gary Cooper up against a mob of unarmed Germans had circulated fast. The MPs had been joking about it at lunch, and Chilton had been laughing right along with them.

  Sonofabitch, that’s what you get for trusting the little bastard.

  Hopkins kicked the side of his desk and spun around once in his swivel chair. There’s got to be some way to short-circuit this mess, he thought. They had been making a big deal about Kirst all day, and they hadn’t let him into the Krankenfuckinghaus to see what it was all about. Some folderol involving the skirt from State. As assistant commandant, he could insist that they keep him informed but, after today, he stood little chance of insisting on anything where Gilman was concerned.

  Suddenly it struck him—Gilman must have something on Kirst. That’s why they were in the Krankenhaus. Gilman was giving the bastard the third degree, getting him to admit that he’d killed Eckmann and Gebhard. Hopkins swore to himself. If Gilman manages to stick that feather in his cap, it’s the end of my bid to replace him as commandant. Can’t let that happen. But how to stop it?

  Get Kirst.

  Cuno tied off the dressing around Bauhopf’s hand and taped it. Glancing up, he saw that the room in Hut 7 had filled up, and there were more prisoners standing in the doorway. He looked at Bauhopf, puzzled.

  “It’s been decided,” said Bauhopf. “We have to get rid of Kirst, and we want your help.”

  Cuno frowned. “Who decided?”

  “Steuben.”

  “I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t give such an order.”

  “He wouldn’t dare countermand it,” an angry voice piped up.

  “How much morphine have you got?” Bauhopf asked.

  “None. It has to be issued by the Americans.” Cuno quickly packed up his bag. The men watched him.

  “If you won’t help,” said Bauhopf, “we’ll do it without you.”

  “You can’t get in.”

  “You’ll take me. I’m wounded.”

  Cuno’s jaw worked as he studied their faces, so full of determination. “You weren’t there today. You didn’t see...”

  “Didn’t see what?”

  “Steuben knows—”

  “The hell with him. We’ll handle this—”

  “What are you going to handle?” Cuno jumped up, eyes blazing. “Do you know what Kirst is?”

  “A spy.”

  “A traitor!”

  “A killer!”

  “It’s not Kirst doing the killing!” Cuno snapped.

  Bauhopf touched his arm. Their eyes met. “Who then?”

  Looking around, Cuno saw that he wasn’t going to get out of this room unless he told the truth. So he did.

  Loring Holloway sat by the window in her room, distracted by the storm boiling up outside. Somehow, out here in the wilds of Montana, a snowstorm seemed far more fearsome than in the canyons of Manhattan. She thought of her warm little apartment in Midtown, and the way the windows rattled all through winter. She thought of her cozy, dry office at the museum, and her parents’ sumptuous country home. She thought of a crackling fire and Warren Clark and his pathetic attempts at courting. And then she thought of Gilman.

  David Gilman. Pigheade
d, authoritarian, narrow-minded but handsome. She sat back and entertained thoughts about him that she had never even considered about Warren. For instance, what was he like in bed?

  She found herself wanting to know all about him, and that was a hell of a lot more than she had ever wanted from Warren. But why? What made him so interesting? Because he hated her? Because he thought she was a nuisance?

  Because he doesn’t yet think of me as a woman. To him, I’m just another guy around here, just another pain in the neck.

  So, how would he behave if he suddenly discovered that Loring Holloway was a woman? How, indeed? And how would it help her with Kirst? She sat up sharply then, frightened at herself. Was she so deeply into this that she might offer herself to Gilman in order to gain control over Kirst?

  There was a knock at her door. She opened it to find an orderly standing stiffly outside. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “Commandant’s having evening mess brought to his quarters and wonders if you’d care to join him.”

  A laugh escaped her, puzzling the orderly. “Tell him yes,” she said, adding with a chuckle, “and ask him if it’s formal.”

  They knew all about it now—Loring Holloway and her strange experiments, Kirst’s even stranger responses, Loring’s story about finding a demon in a bottle in Iraq, and Kirst somehow ingesting it, and that being the likely cause of all the trouble. They hadn’t found it hard to believe, and that had surprised Cuno until he’d realized they were ready to believe anything that would give them a scapegoat—and Kirst had been elected long before tonight.

  Leaving them arguing over what to do, Cuno had fled back to the Krankenhaus, ashamed for opening his mouth. Steuben would be furious. It would be all over camp by evening mess. Cuno tried to convince himself that he had spoken out because there was too great a danger in ignorance, but he knew perfectly well that knowledge was the greater danger.