12 Drummers Drumming

by Diana Deverell

  “Let him go,” I said.

  Krüger smiled. “Throw my pistol to me.”

  I held the pistol tightly in both hands and sighted down the barrel. One shot right between Krüger’s eyes. That was what I needed to save us both.

  The wire-rimmed glasses sat atop the bridge of Krüger’s nose. Below was the smooth skin of Stefan’s forehead. He gagged as the chain tightened across his windpipe. His skin was luminous in the shadowy room. Was he turning blue? Too dim to see. Too scant a margin of error to shoot.

  I lowered the gun. “Let him breathe.” I set the pistol on the floor. The metal rattled dully when I shoved it toward Krüger.

  His right hand released the chain. Stefan fell forward onto his knees again. He gave a strangled moan and toppled sideways, his torso falling across the pistol. He didn’t seem to notice, clutching at his throat with both hands, struggling for air.

  Krüger’s leg drew back as though he were going to kick Stefan off the gun.

  Behind him, the window shattered, the clatter of breaking glass simultaneous with the report from Erika’s Browning.

  I threw myself down beside Stefan. His trouser leg was darkened around the knee and I smelled blood.

  I shouted to Erika, “My gun—”

  The crack of the pistol cut me off. Something bit into the soft flesh of my calf. I made a noise somewhere between a scream and a groan, then jammed my hand under Stefan’s torso, my fingers trying to find the other weapon. His belly was warm and heavy against the back of my hand. I felt the weight of him ease as he tried to help.

  I was on my stomach, my back to Krüger, my head toward the open doorway. Like an avenging angel, Erika slid into view. She stood, legs apart, the Browning in both hands.

  Behind me, a click, Krüger hand-cocking the weapon he’d taken from me.

  My fingers found the pistol grip beneath Stefan, closed around it. My leg throbbed, anticipating the hot tearing of my flesh.

  “Kill him!” I screamed at Erika.

  “We need him alive.” Her voice was calm. “Drop the gun,” she said to Krüger.

  “All right,” he said. And then he swung the barrel from me to her.

  The force of the bullet drove Erika back into the hallway. Her weapon fired, too, the bullet smashing upward into the ceiling, knocking loose a rain of plaster.

  I yanked Krüger’s weapon from under Stefan. I rolled onto my back and fired toward where he’d been.

  Krüger cradled his empty gun hand in the gloved one. He sprang across the room and vanished through the door. His boots thundered down the hallway. Like a thing apart, my conscious mind noted the noise. He hadn’t gone out the door I’d come in. He was running the other way.

  Stefan pushed himself to a sitting position. “You’re hurt,” he said, staring at my calf.

  “Not as bad as you.” There was a red streak across the back of my calf. If there was a bullet in me, I couldn’t feel it. I stood, putting my weight on the leg. Not bad.

  Gun in hand, I limped over to Erika. She was on her back, her limbs flung out to form an X, the thick blue coat as flat and lifeless as the cloth torso of a homemade doll. Her kerchief was gone, and with it, the top of her skull. I shut my eyes. I no longer could look at her.

  I registered the sounds of a door opening and Krüger’s footsteps growing fainter. And nothing else. Krüger must have bribed his way into these empty rooms, paid more to be sure we weren’t disturbed. The blast of gunfire gave the workers another incentive to keep their distance from us.

  My eyes were open again, but seeing nothing. My fingers worked at the knot holding the kerchief on my head. Chains dragged against the floor as Stefan crawled toward me. I ripped the square of blue cloth off me and dropped it. Covering Erika’s face, I hoped. If I looked again at what Krüger had done to her, my heart would burst, my own head split apart.

  “Someone will call the police,” Stefan said. “We’ve got to get out of here—”

  I didn’t wait to hear the rest of it. Escape, yes, that was important. But stopping Krüger was more important. Before I reached the decision to go after him, I was running down the hallway. At the end was a carved wooden door. I flung it open.

  A three-foot-tall porcelain nymph extended a graceful hand to me in welcome. Her skin was translucent, her white tunic was edged with gold and her cobalt-blue eyes were as hard as her kiln-dried heart.

  The room before me was crowded with chinaware. The light glinting off the hand-painted colors pricked at my eyes. The designs were wild with ruffles and leaves and flounces, all edged in such sharp relief that they bristled like spines.

  I was in the museum, the spot where I’d expected to have a sterile chat with Krüger. Where van Hoof was supposed to be in position. I moved carefully toward the rear, my eyes scanning for any sign of either man. Flush with the wall at the back was another metal door—another delivery entrance. A broken padlock lay on the floor in front of it, but the crossbar was still in its groove. If Krüger had gotten in here, he hadn’t yet gotten out.

  A dinner plate smashed into the wall beside me, fracturing into conchoidal pieces, like flakes of a broken seashell. I jumped aside and a bust of Homer whizzed by my ear, twenty pounds of unglazed bisque splintering against the floor. I ducked behind a display case, sweeping aside an ugly tureen shaped and colored like a tortoise. It fell soundlessly onto the carpet beside me, then disintegrated.

  The barrage of china continued. Despite his wounded hand, Krüger fired steadily. Plates and cups flew by from a service for twelve.

  I raised myself to bring my eyes level with the top of the display case.

  The edge of a serving platter hit my temple a half inch above my left eye. The dish fragmented on the top of the case, a fountain of china shards forcing me to shut my eyes as I fired wildly toward Krüger.

  Blood welled in the cut. When I did open my eyes, I could see only out of the right one. I pressed on the wound with my left hand, pushed myself upward with the heel of my right, avoiding the now-jagged edge of the cabinet.

  No missiles came toward me. Instead, I heard the sound of the crossbar sliding back. I couldn’t get off a shot before Krüger was out that door. I wiped my bloody eye on my sleeve as I ran across the room, ignoring the pain pulsing upward from my calf. I jumped through the doorway onto a loading dock. A sleek black Saab was parked in front of it. Krüger was even with the driver’s door, reaching for the handle. I dropped to one knee and aimed for his legs, sighting one-eyed; my first shot went wide. He yanked open the door and jumped inside. As the ignition fired, so did I. I got the left rear tire. But it didn’t stop him. The Saab shot forward. I threw myself onto my stomach, braced my elbows. Blood oozed down my forehead as I aimed for the other tire. I pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Out of ammunition. And Krüger was out of sight.

  Thick fingers tightened on my shoulder. “I saw,” van Hoof said. “But I was too late.”

  “Set-up,” I said, shoving myself to my feet, blotting again at the cut above my eye. “He was ready for us.”

  “And such a simple ruse to delay me,” van Hoof said. “I saw through it at once, but alone, I had no way to speed things along. If I’d had Bert with me—”

  “Save it,” I said, leading him back inside. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  Stefan had dragged himself and Erika to the bottom of the steps beside the exit door. He looked up at us, the Browning cradled in his hands. “Saw you drive up,” he said to van Hoof. He saw my face. “He got away?”

  “Couldn’t stop him.”

  Van Hoof was staring at Erika. Stefan had tied the blue cloth so that it covered her wound. He’d cleaned her face; her cheeks were no longer spattered by blood and brains.

  Van Hoof touched Erika’s cheek. Then his arms went beneath her neck and knees and he lifted her.

  I opened the door. Stefan hauled himself upright, draped an arm across my shoulders. Stumbling and clanking like a chain gang of the living dead, we crossed that deserted street to the vehic
le van Hoof had driven to Meissen. It had the shape of a VW minibus, a windowless once-white van typical of those used by repairmen laboring to preserve the crumbling Communist infrastructure. Van Hoof got behind the wheel. I lay between Stefan and Erika in the rear under a tarp.

  The major quickly got us out of town and off the main roads. Once we were in less danger of discovery by the German police, I shoved back the tarp and found an iron file for Stefan. I used a rag and spit to clean some of the blood off my face and leg. While Stefan worked away with the file, he described his time as Krüger’s prisoner, most of those forty hours spent heavily shackled and beaten to a near coma. “He wanted me immobilized, within sight every second.”

  “Within sight?” van Hoof repeated from the front seat.

  “Chained to him most of the time. He loves me that much.” His tone grew somber. “Casey, you should never have agreed to meet with him.”

  “She didn’t want to,” van Hoof said, his tone grudging. “But we had no better option, according to Holger.”

  “Holger.” Stefan’s voice was thick with something like anger, something like sadness. “His talent is analysis. Logical analysis. He says I become irrational when it comes to Reinhardt. But my brother isn’t logical where I’m concerned. So many times, when we were boys . . .” His voice faded, as if he couldn’t overcome his habit of hiding his brother from me.

  “What, did you grow up with him?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “He was ten years older, half grown when I was born. He came to us only for a month each summer. But that was enough.”

  “Enough?”

  “The first visit I remember, he was already fifteen. I was only five. You can imagine the rest.”

  I could. “Didn’t your father—”

  “He punished Reinhardt, of course.”

  But fear of punishment hadn’t stopped him from tormenting his little brother. “The police will be interested in Gunter Storch now,” I said. “And his cover’s gotten thin. They’ll soon discover his true identity.”

  “My brother will have to flee Germany immediately.”

  “To Libya,” I said, “in order to evade the Mossad.”

  “And to escape from us,” van Hoof added.

  Stefan said, “He has not shown much concern about you.”

  I was beginning to understand how Krüger had so easily outmaneuvered us all. I kept that thought to myself, though. “We’re a sideshow he’s running for his own amusement. The main event is the one he’s planning for Wednesday.”

  “Yes,” Stefan said. “He expects tomorrow’s action to guarantee him a rosy future in Tripoli.”

  “Did you learn what he’s planning?” I asked.

  “Of course not. He’s careful with me. But he let slip one odd thing.” Stefan glanced at his leg. “He’d worked his way to my kneecap. Then he started talking as if he were an American gangster, the way he did after he saw the Godfather movie.” He imitated Krüger’s accented attempt at slang. “ ‘I shoulda fixed it so her old man got his plane ride. Give the suckers a real bargain. Two days early, but close enough. What the hell. Call it a baker’s dozen.’ ” He winced, as if reliving the blow that must have followed those words. “I don’t know that phrase, ‘baker’s dozen.’ ”

  “One dozen plus one extra.” Slowly, I worked it out aloud. “Krüger gave my dad a bomb to carry on board his flight yesterday. One extra, two days early.” I paused. “Hellig tre Konger,” I said.

  “Right,” Stefan said. “Tomorrow, January sixth, is Three Kings Day.”

  In English-speaking countries, Twelfth Night. Twelve planes on the twelfth day of Christmas. That was what Krüger planned. An epiphany for a madman.

  27

  “Could Krüger blow up a dozen planes in a single day?” I asked Stefan.

  “The explosives would have to be virtually undetectable,” Stefan replied slowly.

  “That technology exists,” van Hoof said. “The Global 500 bombing is proof.”

  Stefan added, “The men planting the bombs might have to change planes as often as four times to reach that many targets in twenty-four hours. It would require intricate synchronization. A plan of great complexity and technical brilliance.”

  “Krüger could formulate that plan.” My voice was flat.

  Stefan said, “Tactical precision has always been his special talent.”

  “And if the different terrorist groups supply the manpower—”

  “With each bomb squad aware of only its own targets . . .” Stefan added.

  “Then nobody can stop it from happening,” I concluded.

  Van Hoof cut in. “They could halt all air traffic to conduct a worldwide search, but it would be impossible to find all the explosives. And no authority would order so many planes grounded on the basis of an unsubstantiated threat.”

  “Krüger’s people must be in position by now,” I said. “And he’ll have made the plan fail-safe. They’ll go ahead, all of them, without another word from him.”

  Van Hoof’s palm slammed against the edge of the steering wheel. “We were so close. We could have captured him. We could have forced him to tell us which planes.”

  “He’ll have made a list of them,” Stefan said. “No one could safely rely on his memory for twelve flight numbers.”

  “You could,” I said.

  “Perhaps.” He shrugged. “Reinhardt could not.”

  I remembered Krüger at our meeting in his cabin. Lips moving as he confirmed a date written on an index card. Perhaps he didn’t trust his memory. But what did that matter now?

  Van Hoof put my thoughts into words. “We don’t even know where he is.” He exhaled, a loud sigh of defeat.

  Krüger had escaped. There was no way now to halt the murderous events he’d arranged for Wednesday. All we could do was return to Berlin and report our failure.

  The route we took was safe but rough. Every pothole jarred us. Involuntary moans escaped from Stefan. I hurt, too—my head, my leg, my heart.

  Erika’s body pressed against my side. From time to time her leg would jounce against mine, then settle back. As though she were an exhaustion-drugged child restlessly napping beside an older sister, never waking, accustomed since birth to sleeping against me.

  But the closeness I’d felt with Erika wasn’t an old habit of sisterhood. That surge of affection between us was new, all-consuming in its newness, like the muscle-weakening rapture that sweeps through a new mother when she first touches her baby.

  I’d wanted to stop time and marvel over that recent bond. Count its ten tiny fingers. Flex each of its perfect toes. Run my fingertips over its soft, pink skin. Inhale the heady, yeasty, brand-new smell. But Erika was dead before I’d begun.

  The pain inside me felt as though bundles of muscles and nerves were being peeled off my rib cage. I turned onto my side to look at Erika. Then pressed my face against her coat sleeve. I smelled smoke from her cigarettes and the residue left after she’d fired her weapon. The odor of ashes. A spasm shook my body, a convulsion that pushed me more tightly against her.

  Stefan must have felt it. He moved, spooning his body around my back. I needed warmth. I let him stay close.

  Van Hoof continued north. He followed dirt tracks across fallow fields, drove silently through a forest on a pine-needle carpet, idled slowly for a time behind a herd of reddish-colored milk cows on a muddy farm road. He didn’t look at his map.

  By the time we reached our warehouse headquarters, it was dark. Van Hoof swung the van to the far side of the stacked blocks, flashed the headlights twice, then turned off the ignition. He rolled down the driver’s-side window and cold air surged into the van. After a half minute, Hilly-Anne’s pale face was framed in the opening, her hand inside her jacket.

  Van Hoof said something in Flemish. I heard Erika’s name. Then, from the woman, an expletive powered as much by sorrow as by rage. Hurried footsteps on the gravel. A second face at the window, hair skinned back in a ducktail. Danièle. Van Hoof kept tal
king, giving instructions. He turned, asked Stefan a question.

  Stefan slowly spelled out a long German surname.

  Van Hoof turned back to the women.

  “We must get out now,” Stefan told me. “Hilly-Anne and Danièle will take the van.”

  I clutched Erika’s shoulder. My voice came out too harsh. “Disposing of the body?”

  “They’ll bring her to a man who’s helped us before,” Stefan said. He put his hand on my wrist. “He’ll take care of her and the paperwork.”

  I unclenched my fingers. But I didn’t move my hand.

  Stefan gently lifted it away. “Her parents. We’ll send her home, to them.”

  Yes. They’d need that. I knew nothing of Jewish funerals. But I knew grief.

  I sat up. When van Hoof opened the rear door, I climbed out to the ground. Together, we helped Stefan out. Then I slammed the door. Van Hoof supported Stefan as he limped toward the warehouse. I lingered for another minute, watching Hilly-Anne pull herself up behind the wheel. Her door thudded shut. Then, Danièle slammed the passenger door. They were both leaving. With Krüger on the run, we no longer needed sentries. The headlights cut a swath through the darkness. I smelled exhaust, felt the heat blow against my leg. Tires grumbled over the frozen stones. The van rolled slowly forward and out of the lot. I watched until the taillights disappeared.

  I had to let her go. Erika, so newly my friend. She’d died protecting me. Oh! Standing there, alone now in that cold, lifeless place, it hurt me so to let her slip away.

  I turned and walked toward the warehouse. I felt as if I were slogging through mud.

  Inside, I went directly to the cubicle where I’d left my father. I found him playing against Bert in a game of cribbage. A space heater glowed in the corner and the air was thick with the smell of unwashed clothes. My father moved his peg along the board, counting under his breath. He looked up at me, annoyed, then resumed counting. He was winning. He hadn’t beaten me at cribbage in the past couple of years. Why hadn’t I noticed that? Why hadn’t I let him win a game from time to time? Bert was better than I was at dealing with my father’s illness.