On the front door hung a sign that said in orange on black letters, "Be right back!"
Don, like Claire Graham before him, had a bullet hole between his eyes. The position of the hole made it look rather like a tika mark, the symbolic third eye of Hindu culture. In gaining his third eye, Donald had time for only a single flash of insight before his brains were blown out. His single flash of insight was, "Say, that looks like a gun..."
Since Don was indisposed, a mercenary named Alphonse Drek was now covering for him behind the front desk in the motel lobby. Everything about the lobby was drab; from the ash grey carpet to the green paisley wallpaper and matching drapes. The mercenary's task was simple; tell any weary travellers there was no room, and shoot any who seemed suspicious. It was a simple enough assignment, but Alphonse was feeling despondent. He had discovered that the late motel owner had kept an Elvis shrine in the back office; complete with hundreds of photos and memorabilia on a tiny corner altar. Alphonse too was an Elvis devotee, although not to the same religious extreme. The innkeeper seemed convinced that Elvis Presley was the Messiah himself. Of course, it was Rynard who'd actually shot Don, but still it made Alphonse sad to see a fellow fan slain. He softly sang Are You Lonesome Tonight? to himself in requiem, as he oiled the muzzle of his FN P90 machine gun.
The rest of the troop was divided into three adjacent rooms on the upper level. Their flight home was not until tomorrow. In the meantime, they could relax. In room 203, two of the men were watching television. The old antennae TV initially showed nothing but static. "If I wanted to watch snow, I'd have stayed in Stuttgart!" the soldier named Jan shouted as he drew his pistol to shoot the set. Before he could pull the trigger, fellow mercenary Johann demonstrated that he could make the TV work by tying a wire garrotte between the rabbit ears. "Ich bin ein MacGyver!" he declared. What Jan and Johann did not know was that one percent of all TV static is background radiation left over from the Big Bang that created the universe 13.7 billion years ago. Of course, even had they known this, they wouldn't have cared. The mercenaries changed channels until they found static organized in the form of a reality TV show called The Bachelor. On the show, more than two dozen women compete for the love of one man. In theory, the winner got to marry him. In real reality, almost none of the network arranged marriages worked out. You had a better chance of finding marital bliss with a mail order bride from Moscow. Still, the show was a great way to unwind after a kidnapping. On the screen, the Bachelor kissed his date. It was a passionate kiss and the two Germans watched intently while sharing a jumbo bag of Cheetos. This in itself was an act of disobedience. The Colonel always insisted that the men eat only organic food. Jan and Johann didn't know what Cheetos were exactly, but were fairly certain they didn't qualify as organic—or even food for that matter. "Goodnight," said the Bachelor.
"Are you kidding me?" yelled Jan, throwing up his hands.
"Dummkopf!" said Johann. "She would sleep with you! They would all sleep with you! Ahhh!"
The woman smiled coyly and squeezed the Bachelor's hand one last time.
"At least grope die boobies!"
"Ja."
"How stupid are these Americans? If Germans made this show it would be nothing but sex."
"Or the Italians."
"Yes, the Italians would do a good job."
"But then they would get married and fat."
Jan snorted with laughter, "Ja, is true!"
"Can you please keep it down?" said Elias. Elias was the third soldier sharing the room. He was bent over the bathroom vanity, trying to expunge camouflage paint from his cheeks with makeup remover and cotton balls. Jan and Johann were still wearing their greasepaint and sweaty fatigues. They can keep their clogged pores, thought Elias, nowhere does it say a soldier of fortune can't have clear skin.
There was a knock at the door.
For a moment, no one moved. Slowly, Jan and Johann's hands fell to their firearms.
There were three more short knocks.
The men relaxed. It was one of their own. Still, rules were rules. Until visual verification was obtained, a certain amount of caution was required. Both men rose to their feet, hands on pistol grips. Johann spied Elias's gun on the top of the TV. "Annie, get your gun!"
"I'm exfoliating!"
"Get your gun, Fräulein."
Elias turned to face them, fingertips covered in microdermabrasion cream. "First of all, whoever it is, he knew the knock, so he's one of us. Second of all, even if it is the police or whatever, they'd have to get through you to get to me. So what do you care?"
The two mercenaries exchanged glances. "What if it's the Colonel?" asked Jan.
Elias paused. He hadn't considered that. He delicately picked up his pistol with his pinky finger through the trigger guard. "Fine."
Jan nodded and peered through the peephole. He instantly recognized the bald pate of Dr. Holtz. "It's the professor," he said with a laugh. Elias tossed his gun on the bed and returned to the bathroom mirror. Jan unlatched the door and waved Dr. Holtz inside. The doctor, dwarfed by the muscular mercenary, nodded meekly as he entered. He wore coke bottle glasses and nervously stroked a small goatee. The beard itself was grey, but his moustache was stained cigarette yellow from too many late nights in the lab. "I need to see him."
"What for?" asked Jan.
"Ja, the Colonel said he was going to question him himself," said Johann.
"Well, he changed his mind," said Dr. Holtz assertively. It was hard to be assertive when staring up another man's nose. The soldier's nose hairs were perfectly manicured, Holtz noted, just as the Colonel required. Rynard believed that good discipline began with good grooming. He had once yanked off a soldier's unkempt beard with his bare hands. "He wanted me to question him first, to see if I could learn anything technical about the device." The two men eyed him skeptically. "Ask the Colonel yourself if you don't believe me," said the physicist. He pointed to the hotel phone, daring them to call.
Jan considered this a moment, then nodded. "Fine. He's in the bathroom, chained to the toilet."
"Is he okay?"
"Of course."
"Maybe a little wet," grinned Elias, "Jan's aim is terrible."
"Ja, is true," agreed Jan.
The men laughed. Holtz forced a smile.
The toilet was in a separate room next to the vanity and shower. Jan opened the door to reveal the young boy cowering beside the toilet as promised. Inside, a small window offered a second story view of telephone wires and slate sky. Holtz studied the boy. Other than a black eye and bruised temple, he seemed fine, physically anyway. He reached for Alex's face. The boy whimpered and shrank away. Traumatized, thought Holtz, who wouldn't be? Handcuffs held the boy's hands tight around a drainpipe in the floor. Holtz noted the red welts where Alex had strained against them, no doubt for hours. "Give me the keys."
"Why?"
"I want to interrogate him as a boy, not a dog!" He tried to sound authoritative, on the theory that soldiers responded better to orders than requests.
Jan snorted. He then leaned in close and pressed the key into Holtz's hand. "You'll get better obedience from a dog."
Holtz waited for the soldier to go. When he realized the mercenary had no intention of leaving. "This is a private interrogation," said Holtz emphatically.
Jan stared at the scientist, trying to decide if he cared enough to argue.
"It's almost time for the rose ceremony!" Elias shouted from the other room.
"Whatever," said Jan. He then turned and headed back to the bedroom to watch the rest of the show.
Holtz closed the toilet door and quietly locked it. He then turned to face the quivering boy. "Chocolate?" Holtz said in crisp English. He offered Alex a bite of dark chocolate wrapped in foil. Alex stared at Holtz as if the professor had offered him arsenic. "It's good. It's German." The boy shook his head. "Eat it," Holtz insisted, "you'll need your strength... and energy." Alex cautiously accepted the candy, never taking his eyes from Holtz's. He took
a bite, then another and another, until the bar was gone. He hadn't eaten since yesterday. "Now, Alex, you need to listen to me," said Dr. Holtz firmly. "I am your friend, your only friend, and we haven't much time."
"Where's my mom?" asked Alex.
"I don't know," the professor lied.
"Who are you?"
Dr. Holtz took a cigarette from an inside coat pocket. He lit it as he spoke. "My name is Dr. Rudolph Holtz. I am a physicist and mathematician from Leipzig." Alex had no idea what or where Leipzig was. The professor paused to exhale, savouring the flavour of the tobacco.
Alex began to cough. "Could you not do that? Smoking will kill you, you know!"
"I should be so lucky," said Dr. Holtz with a chuckle. "Anyway, to answer your next question, you have to trust me because you have no other choice. If you do not, the Colonel will be in here shortly and he will question you. Colonel Rynard Gruber is a soulless man who believes in nothing. His type of interrogation quickly degenerates to the removing of fingernails, fingers and other parts of the body. Things much worse than your dreaded second hand smoke." The professor took a long drag on his cigarette while he let this sink in. Alex's brain tried to grapple with the idea that he seemed to have landed in some torture horror film, complete with Nazis and mad professors. "Now then, give me your hand," said Dr. Holtz. Alex stared at him as if he were mad. "I'm not going to cut off your fingers, boy, I'm going to release you. Quickly now!"
Alex nervously held out his hands. The professor parked his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and proceeded to unlock Alex's handcuffs. "I'm going to quit after this one," said the Professor with a wry smile, "and this time, I mean it."
The handcuffs fell from Alex's wrists. The boy immediately began to rub the painful welts. "What's going on?" he asked.
"The item you found is extremely valuable and extremely dangerous. So dangerous, that it simply cannot fall into the hands of one such as Mathias Boltzmann."
"Who's Mathias Boltzmann?" asked Alex. Someone had turned on the radio in the next room. What followed was a chorus of falsetto voices singing along in German accents, badly off key. Holtz smiled kindly at Alex. He had been afraid the boy might be too traumatized to absorb anything at all. "Boltzmann is an arms dealer and a very successful one at that. Colonel Gruber and I work for him."
Alex's brain slowly clicked into gear, "So, then why are you helping me?"
The doctor paused. His expression grew dark. "Because I have children myself," he said, "It is for them that I must... quit smoking."
Alex stared at the professor, confused by the course of the conversation. "So what now?" he asked.
"Now? Now, you must go!" Dr. Holtz nodded toward the small window above the toilet. "Too small for a man," he said, "but not too small for a lad such as yourself."
Alex stared at the window. He then stepped up onto the toilet and peered out to the alleyway below. "Are you out of your freakin' mind? That's a twenty-foot drop!"
"There is mud, you see? The mud is soft from the rain; it will break your fall."
"More like break my legs! No freakin' way!" said Alex adamantly. He wasn't exactly scared of heights, but he wasn't fearless of them either.
Fingers shaking, Dr. Holtz took a long drag on his diminishing cigarette. He stared fiercely into Alex's eyes and spoke with punctuated precision. "Boy, Alex, listen carefully. This is the sort of man that Colonel Rynard Gruber is. If he decides you are worth less whole than the sum of your parts, he will not hesitate to dismember you. You understand? If you do not jump now, you may soon have no legs left to break."
* * *
In the motel bedroom, the three mercenaries had largely forgotten Dr. Holtz and Alex. Having given up on television, they had turned to the radio instead. The 1991 hit, I'm Too Sexy by Right Said Fred blared at top volume. Jan and Johann sang along, while Elias danced on the bed in his underwear, waving his MP7 submachine gun in the air and shouting "I'm too sexy. Ja! I am too sexy!"
Colonel Gruber entered the room. The men froze. All three mercenaries, veterans of countless gunfights and clandestine operations, were momentarily petrified. They then snapped to attention. "What is this?" Rynard demanded.
"I'm Too Sexy, by Right Said Fr..." Elias trailed off as he realized the Colonel was staring at him.
"Sorry, sir," said Jan. "We were, um... uh..."
"Raising moral?" suggested Johann meekly.
"I see," said Rynard. None of them had learned to read the Colonel. This was what kept them on their toes. Rynard might accept their explanation, or he might shoot them all for insubordination. It could go either way. The only thing they knew for certain was that, if it came down to the three of them against the Colonel, they would lose.
Suddenly, there was a loud KLANK! from the bathroom. It was the sound of a heavy porcelain cistern lid hitting the floor.
"Let go of me!" they could hear Alex yell. "I said, let go!"
* * *
Alex lay facedown in the mud of the alleyway. His body reverberated with the impact of landing. After a moment, the pain came. "You broke my damn leg!" he yelled.
"Go! While you still can!" shouted Dr. Holtz from the window above.
Alex was angry, but also terrified. He pulled himself to his knees and was surprised to discover that, while his shins ached, his legs did not appear to be broken after all. He tested this theory with a step. It was painful, but not unbearable. "Run!" the Professor pleaded. "They will kill you, boy! Run!"
"Break it down," ordered the Colonel.
Inside, Dr. Holtz braced himself against the flimsy motel bathroom door. Whomp! Johann kicked the particleboard. The impact nearly dislodged the door from its hinges. It held only because the professor had buttressed his legs against the opposite wall.
"Again!" shouted the Colonel.
Holtz chewed the butt of his cigarette and braced himself.
In the alley below, Alex broke into a lurching run.
Johann kicked the door again. Once more, with Holtz's help, it continued to hold, albeit barely.
Rynard placed his hand on Johann's shoulder as the mercenary prepared to kick the door a third time. "Wait." The Colonel drew his treasured antique Mauser C96 semiautomatic pistol. He then fired three evenly spaced shots through the bathroom door.
Dr. Rudolph Holtz slid to the floor. All three bullets had punctured his back. "Ungh..." he gasped. Ungh? He was going to die and this, he realized, didn't even qualify as a last word. Rynard kicked in the door and rolled the dying physicist out of the way with his boot. Dr. Holtz landed facedown on the tile, staring at the bottom of the toilet bowl. There he tried to think of something more profound to say and, in a flash of inspiration, he did. It was something poetic and beautiful. It was something that somehow summed up his life's achievements, terrible failings, and ultimately noble death. When opened his mouth to speak, however, he found that he could not. The second Mauser bullet had punctured his lungs. Instead of words, Holtz simply gurgled and spat red phlegm. "Guh," was the best he could manage. Oh well, he thought. He remembered how his mother used to serve him oatmeal porridge before school and how warm it made him feel inside. He felt warm inside now. That, of course, was the feeling of his belly filling with blood. He remembered the meadow outside the kitchen window. He remembered the flowers. Mutter, meine Mutter, he thought, can I have some more porridge please? Jackboots stomped past his eyes as they shuttered for the last time.
"The window!" said Jan, stating the obvious.
Rynard stepped up onto the toilet seat and stuck his head out. Limping down the alley, in a broken trot, was the boy, wincing with every step. Alex glanced back over his shoulder. For a brief instance, his and the Colonel's eyes met. Even at a distance, Alex was struck by the German's piercing blue eyes—their icy hue the exact colour of a nuclear cooling pond. Like the metaphorical pool, the German's eyes were clean and clear, with something deadly lurking in their depths. Rynard tried to reach his arm through to fire his pistol, but discovered he could fit eith
er his head or his arm, but not both. Enraged, he turned back to the anxious soldiers. "Get him!" he snarled.
Alex now realized he'd run the wrong way. Neither the motel, nor the neighbouring buildings offered any escape routes. The only door he'd found had been locked. Now, it was taking too long to reach the alley's end. He'd be spotted for sure. For a moment he hesitated. He then heard the rumble of a truck behind him and dove to hide amid a collection of trash cans.
Cautiously, Alex peered out to see the source of the sound. A hulking green garbage truck, barely able to fit the narrow alleyway, rumbled towards him. He watched as the truck rolled past his hiding place, then halted with the hiss of air brakes. Two garbagemen, who had been riding the tailgate, jumped down. Both men were huge. Despite being dressed in dingy green coveralls, they looked more like linebackers than city workers. Alex decided he would leap up and beg for help as soon as they came over to collect the garbage. The garbage men, however, did not come towards him. Instead, they seemed more interested in what was happening in front of the truck.
Rynard approached the garbage truck with one arm raised and an anxious look on his face. Jan hung back, hands casually behind him, hiding his semiautomatic from sight. Johann and Elias had taken the long way around to cut off any possible escape. "Hey!" Rynard shouted with a perfect mid-western American accent. "Hello there!"
"Yo," said the truck driver, leaning from the cab window. The two other garbagemen, curious and happy for a break from routine, wandered up the side of the truck.
Chaos Theory: A Feel Good Story About the End of the World Page 6
