Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  My eyes go wide. “Tied up for what?”

  He smiles his sinister hunter’s smile. “Tied up for our little ruse. Hold out your hands?” He binds my wrists and then stands back and examines me. “You certainly look the part of a little fugitive.”

  I don’t know what he means until I glance into one of the car’s side mirrors. There are scratches on my face and arms from the bushes, a leaf in my hair and dirt smudges on my white blouse. Yes, I have the look of being hunted down by a Stasi officer, and I realize what his ruse might be.

  We drive in silence. When I glance at Reinhardt I see his face has taken on that hard, determined expression I remember from the night of the bakery raid, and from the night that Ulrich nearly killed me. He’s willing to commit murder to get us out of this but I pray that it won’t come to that, for his sake and for the sake of whomever we encounter.

  Except Heydrich. Maybe I won’t feel too bad if he shoots Heydrich.

  We approach the roadblock and a guard holds up a white gloved hand, signaling for us to stop. Reinhardt puts the car into neutral and gets out, slamming the door. He points to one of the guards, and then to me. “You. Watch her.” The guard, a boy of about nineteen with a rifle in his hands looks curiously in through the window at me. I pull a little on the ropes binding my wrists and scowl at him.

  Reinhardt addresses the soldier with two stripes on his arm. “I am Oberstleutnant Maier of the Staatssicherheit. There is a border crossing up ahead, ja? I need to radio East Berlin immediately.” He doesn’t take out any ID but I guess that he’s hoping his authority and uniform will do the work. There’s some frowning among the guards, so Reinhardt repeats what he said in Russian and points to me. “Prisoner. Plennyy.”

  The guards seem to understand this and salute him, and Reinhardt gets back into the car. As we’re waved through the checkpoint I risk at glance at Reinhardt’s face and it’s stiff and closed. The face of a Stasi officer on important business, unwilling for anyone or anything to stand in his way. Once we’re several hundred meters away from the checkpoint his face clears and he puts a hand on my leg. “First hurdle down. Good, Liebling, you did well. But the next will be more complicated.”

  I don’t feel as confident as he is and I wonder if I’m going to throw up again. “What if Heydrich himself is at the checkpoint? What if they have our description?”

  “It’s a risk, but remember what I said—Heydrich is expecting us to defect. That roadblock might have had nothing to do with us, or it could be that we’ve been followed despite my precautions. My Russian isn’t good enough to find out the answers we need, but my Bulgarian is. There’ll be Bulgarian guards at the next checkpoint.”

  We drive in silence for several minutes, and then Reinhardt clears his throat and says, “I’ll need to bring you with me when I get out of the car this time. There’ll be a radio inside the checkpoint and I need you to cause a distraction—don’t run, don’t give the guards a reason to shoot you. Shout at them, try to kick them perhaps. But don’t try too hard or they’ll hurt you. Just do enough so that their attention is diverted from what I’m doing with the radio.”

  I nod, my mouth too dry to reply.

  “I don’t want to ask you to do this but it’s the only way.”

  “It’s fine. I want to help.”

  “Wishing you were safely in West Berlin?” he asks with a tight smile.

  Am I? Away from all this tension and fear, all this risk? “No. I’d rather be fleeing with you than be safe in West Berlin without you.”

  He reaches out a hand to caress my cheek, his eyes on the road ahead. “That’s my brave girl.”

  The border crossing looms and he pulls the car to a stop. Once he’s helped me out of the car he holds me tightly around the upper arm and the barrel of the gun digs between my ribs. I try not to think about the fact that the safety’s off and his finger is on the trigger.

  With the air of a man who’s had a very trying day he marches me up to the checkpoint office and pushes me inside. He locates the highest ranked officer and waits to be saluted. The young man’s eyes go wide at the sight of Reinhardt’s uniform and decoration, and he snaps to attention with a smart salute. Reinhardt returns it and begins speaking rapidly in Bulgarian. After a moment I’m thrust into a chair and two guards stand over me while Reinhardt is directed toward the radio. He puts the earpiece to his ear and his broad back conceals what he’s doing. I hear him talking in German and I look up at the two guards.

  “Don’t point your guns at me,” I say to their uncomprehending faces. I doubt they understand what I’m saying but that doesn’t matter. An angry prisoner is obvious in any language. I stand up, shouting, and the two guard put heavy hands on my shoulders and force me down again. The guard that saluted Reinhardt was watching him, but he turns toward the commotion I’m making. Good. But my exultation is short-lived as I’m back-handed across the face. I lean forward, gasping, waiting for the blazing pain to subside.

  “Would you keep her silent,” Reinhardt growls over his shoulder, but I catch his eye and I know he’s had time to do whatever he wanted to do with the radio. I sit quietly as he finishes the last of his call, certain that he’s speaking to dead air and not Stasi HQ.

  A thrill goes through me. None of these guards seem to know who we are. With the radio disabled, even if one of Heydrich’s men saw us in the town they won’t be able to communicate with the checkpoint. This is going to work. We’re going to make it.

  There’s movement out of the corner of my eye and I glance over, expecting to see another guard drawn by my shouting. But it’s not a man in a Bulgarian or Soviet uniform. It’s the olive green and smart tailoring of a Stasi officer. Ice water floods my veins as I realize who it is.

  Heydrich. There’s a gun in his hand and it’s pointed at Reinhardt’s back.

  I open my mouth to scream but Heydrich steps forward and hits me up the side of my head with the barrel of his gun. I reel back and the world slides out of focus. There’s shouting, I see a gun raised. Two shots ring out. Blood sprays in the air and someone calls out in pain. Reinhardt slumps to the ground just a few feet from me, his hand pressed against his neck, blood gouting from between his fingers. His eyes are wide with shock.

  It’s like a nightmare. I open my mouth to shout his name but black spots rush up. I fight for consciousness. Reinhardt needs me. But I feel myself slipping away.

  We were so close to finally being free. So close, but we didn’t make it.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  I wake up to a papery mouth and pounding headache. Lifting my head sends shards of glass through my skull and I moan, my eyes closed against the bright light in the room. I rub my forehead until a sound freezes my blood. A low laugh.

  “Ah, the elusive Evony Daumler. Not looking much like the pretty Stasi secretary now, are you?”

  I crack my eyes open and see him standing over me, smiling, gloating. Hauptmann Heydrich. I’m still in the checkpoint office. All three of the Bulgarian guards are standing behind him, watching us, and there’s a dark pool of blood on the floor. So much blood, and none of the guards nor Hauptmann Heydrich are bleeding. Where is he?

  I wet my lips. Reinhardt said that if Heydrich caught me the most logical thing would be to put a bullet in my head and bury me in a shallow grave. If I’m still alive he must need something.

  “Looking for Volker? I’m afraid he won’t be doing much of anything anymore.” Heydrich nods at the bloodstain.

  No. I start out of the chair but Heydrich pushes me back. He’s not dead. If he was Heydrich would be showing me his body.

  Guessing my thoughts, Heydrich smiles. “I don’t actually have his body, not just yet. He put up quite a fight despite the bullet in his neck and he managed to get away. He’s bleeding out in the woods and I’ll have his corpse collected shortly.” He crouches down before me and assumes an expression of cloying concern. “How does it feel to know he left you in the end? That that’s what your love was worth to him. Saving his own sk
in.”

  I watch him stonily. If Reinhardt ran it was so he could get help, not to leave me behind.

  “Don’t you want revenge, Fräulein Daumler, for all that he’s done to you? He captured you. Used you. Left you. You don’t have to go to prison. We could help each other.”

  Does he really think I’m so gullible? “If Reinhardt’s dying then you don’t need my help. You’ve got what you want.”

  He smiles wider. “There’s a position that’s just come up at the Ministry. Oberstleutnant. Newly vacated. I want Herr Oberst to know it was me who captured Volker, and you have all sorts of riveting details to tell.”

  Panic slams into me. Maybe he’s telling the truth and Reinhardt really is dying in the woods. Maybe he’s already dead. My voice shakes. “Go to hell.”

  “As you wish. But I hope you know that there’s nothing to be gained in protecting your lover any longer. If you speak I can see to it that you don’t spend the rest of your life in prison.”

  I look around the room, desperate, for answers. The guards are watching me though they aren’t following the German conversation. We should have talked about what to do if one of us was captured. What we’d say. Reinhardt’s left me behind when he swore we were in this together to the end. It’s the end, and I’m all alone.

  I lift my head and look into Heydrich’s face. “All right. I’ll tell you everything.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Volker

  I’m going to kill Heydrich. I’m going to make it hurt and he’ll rue the day he ever crossed me by the time I’ve finished with him.

  This is my first thought upon regaining consciousness, and despite the fact that I’m tied to a chair god knows where with a boy I vaguely recognize from Stasi HQ pointing a gun at my head I swear by heaven and earth that Heydrich will be dead before the sun rises in the morning. How much he suffers will depend on whether Evony is still alive.

  There’s a buzzing at the front of my skull and I feel like I’ve lost a lost of blood. I don’t know how long I passed out for and I don’t remember how I got to this strange barn. I peer at the boy, who’s got auburn hair and a lot of freckles, and try to place him. He’s got his finger on the trigger, rightly afraid of me. But none of that matters right now. Where the fuck is Evony?

  It’s a waking nightmare. I’m unable to go to her when she needs me most. Anything could be happening to her. Heydrich’s got her and he must have guessed what I feel for her by now.

  Think. Focus. I take a deep, steadying breath and try to remember the last time I saw her. Passed out on the ground at Heydrich’s feet. Scheisse. I need to get out of these ropes and I need to stop the bleeding. The bullet didn’t hit an artery in my neck, otherwise I’d be dead already, but it’s still a dangerous wound. I peer at the boy, finally placing him. “You’re from the mail room, aren’t you? Let me have my left hand to compress this wound.”

  “Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”

  I stop twisting the ropes behind my back and go completely still. Then I look up at the boy again, rage mounting by increments in my chest. “You’re Evony’s contact,” I say quietly. I don’t know how I know. Perhaps it’s his sneering tone, so like the way I’m certain that Heydrich would like to speak to me.

  The boy smiles. He’s younger than I thought he would be and possesses all the arrogance of youth. Anger and loathing churn through me. This person lied to Evony, gave false hope to Evony, right under my nose. He’s here pointing a gun at my head while his master is doing God knows what to the woman I swore to protect. I made a mistake taking us to that checkpoint. Evony wanted us to go back, to find another way. She was scared, but in my arrogance I thought my uniform, my authority, my cleverness would get us through. If he hurts her—if he kills her—

  I struggle to control my temper, for her sake. I don’t deserve her or her love but somehow I’ve earned both and I will not have her snatched from me at the last moment. I will get her back, and I will make everyone who has hurt her pay dearly.

  The one good thing about this situation is that this boy is here and Heydrich isn’t. Heydrich must need something from her. Testimony, information. He’s not confident that he can get me convicted even though I’m his prisoner. If he needs something there’s still time.

  I fix the boy with a hard stare. “Either you let me compress this wound or you do it for me, or I bleed out now all over the floor. I doubt your captain would be pleased if I died, do you? Not before he’s managed to gloat over finally getting the better of me.”

  The boy seems to consider this but then shakes his head. He doesn’t want to get any closer.

  All right. I’ll just have to do this the hard way, and quickly as possible before I pass out again.

  I watch him carefully for a few minutes, observing his body language. The way his hand clutches the gun convulsively. The way he swallows far too often. He’s hiding it well but he’s nervous. He’s not used to being out in the field.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Peter,” he says without thinking, and then looks like he wishes he could take it back.

  “Peter,” I say conversationally. “I’m going to kill you, Peter.”

  The boy freezes and then re-centers the gun on my chest. So he’s at ease in the corridors of HQ lying to Evony but he doesn’t like when things start to get serious. No one has ever pointed a gun at me without me returning fire and my temper rises that I’m not able to do so now. But I keep my emotions out of my face as it’s more unnerving for him this way.

  I go on in the same conversational tone, never breaking eye contact. “It’s been a very long day, Peter, and there’s a lot still for me to do. Even so, I promise you that I’m going to spend a few minutes of it wringing your neck.” This isn’t an idle threat. I’m already anticipating the feel of his tendons cracking in my hands. The sound of him choking his last.

  “Shut up.”

  “What were you before you thought you could get the better of my Evony? His assistant? His driver?”

  Peter’s face flickers, an almost imperceptible movement but I see it, and I roar with laughter, putting more energy into it than I feel, making this as unpleasant as possible for him. “You were his driver. All this—” I nod at the gun, myself, the barn “—is rather out of your league. Did you hatch the scheme between the two of you to trick Evony? Did the battered secretary seemed like an easy mark?”

  Peter rallies a little as I remind him of his apparent cleverness. “She agreed so easily. That’ll teach you to beat up women.”

  “I never laid a hand on her.” I pause, and then smile coldly at him. “Not like that. I touch her in many other ways, and she likes it. She always has. Do you know she was playing you the whole time? She’s far cleverer than you or your captain; far stronger in her mind. Far stronger than me. The agent I could have made of her.” I pause, pretending to think about it but really watching him. He’s sweating visibly now and his gun hand is dropping as he tries to figure out whether I’m telling the truth. If he was smarter or more experienced he’d realize that it doesn’t matter one bit whether I’m telling the truth as he’s the one holding the gun.

  “She’s the reason it all ends for you today. She’s going to be your undoing, because it’s for her that I’m going to take you apart.” All the while I’m talking I’m distracting him from what I’m really up to. The ropes binding my wrists behind my back are too well tied for me to twist out of them, but the chair he’s bound me to is as rickety as the barn and I’m loosening the slat in the chair back more and more as each moment passes.

  Peter’s hand clenches again and he realizes he’s becoming distracted.

  “You’re not any good at this, are you, Peter? You don’t want to be here.” He should shoot me now and make it look like I attacked him but he’s too afraid of what Heydrich will do to him. Idiot. The only person he should be afraid of is me. He should at least have gagged me to prevent me from getting inside his head.

  “All her fear,
all the pain that you and Heydrich have put her through, I’m going to make you feel it, and then I’m going to kill you.”

  The slat comes free. I smile again, my coldest, most unpleasant smile, the one that sends a chill up the spine of the prisoners I interrogate. That makes them lose all hope. It works on Peter even though I’m the one tied to the chair. Finally, he looks around for something to gag me with and the second he does I launch myself to my feet and head-butt him in the nose. The cartilage cracks against my forehead and he howls in pain. A second later I’ve shaken the ropes loose and my hands are free.

  Peter raises the gun but I knock it out of his hands. He backs away, his eyes wide with panic, blood pouring down his face, hands raised uselessly to ward me off. “Evony wouldn’t want you to hurt me. She’d want you to be merc—”

  He dares invoke her name to try and protect himself? The world goes red and I grab his throat and start to squeeze. Peter struggles but rage is flooding through me, making me strong, making me pitiless. I remember Evony’s pale face at every border crossing. Her cry of pain as the Bulgarian soldier backhanded her across the face. I think of her alone with Heydrich and the torment she’s undoubtedly going through at this moment when I swore I’d never let anyone hurt her. All this inundates my mind and I barely notice Peter’s flailing becoming weaker and weaker.

  Finally he goes still, his eyes wide and staring and I let him fall to the ground as floppy as rag doll. The muscles in my arms are shaking and black spots fill my vision. I can’t pass out. If I pass out now Evony will die. With every shred of willpower I possess, I force myself to move and go outside.

  The dilapidated barn sits alongside a narrow, unmade road. The sunset is over my right shoulder and I turn to the north, one hand clamped to the side of my neck. I don’t know which side of the border I’m on but something tells me it’s the Bulgarian side, which means I’m heading toward the border checkpoint where I last saw Evony. If I’m wrong… I don’t want to think about the consequences if I’m wrong.