“What’s this?” A voice was heard and another soldier, buttoning the fly of his trousers, appeared and walked up to the Prince. Lucille’s heart sank. Amazing, Lucille thought, captured because some Rumanian private had stepped away from his post to piss. She quickly tapped Crisan on the shoulder.
He moved immediately. Three steps, quick and quiet as a cat, and he was behind the second sentry. Crossing his arms he looped the wire over the man’s head. Lucille doubted the doomed soldier ever saw it. What, a silver glint that whipped past his eyes?
Crisan yanked his arms akimbo, which closed the piano wire loop with one powerful pull.
It cut through the man’s neck like a wet knife through cheese. There was a click as wire bit through neck vertebrae. The head tumbled down the man’s chest. Crisan kneed the body away from him. The neck stump pumped blood with the last few beats of the failing heart, one, two, three scarlet spurts, then ceased.
Lucille heard Harker’s whisper. “Blimey . . .”
At the same time the Prince closed in on the sentry in front of him. The man was shaking his head, as if coming out of a dream, but in an instant the Prince had grasped the man by the neck and one arm. With no evident effort the vampire threw the sentry into the air, as high as the second-storey windows. The body arced across the street and landed headfirst upon the cobblestones with a wet thud. Horea rushed forward to make sure the man was dead.
Harker, mouth agape, was still staring at the disembodied head propped on the cobblestones, the grey face staring up at them, cigarette still glowing between the grimaced lips.
The air was thick with the smell of blood, and Crisan stripped the headless body of its tunic as Closca separated the head from the helmet. Lucille took the man’s rifle. Horea rejoined them, wiping his dagger blade. “Harker, lead the way,” Lucille ordered, breaking him out of his shock. He moved across the intersection. Lucille and the others followed, Crisan pulling Renfield along.
Lucille was worried that Renfield might burst into song any minute and give them away. She was not sure what she would do if he did. Would she slit his throat? To save her team, the mission? She hoped she would not have to make that decision.
The next intersection was guarded by two Privates and a Corporal. All three sat on the hood of a parked car and smoked cigarettes. Their rifles leaned against the fender. Lucille would never let her people be that far from their weapons.
Harker retreated to the shadows. “Too many for the Prince, I’d say.”
He and Lucille turned to the vampire.
“I cannot assure you that one will not get off a shot and alert the fellows gathering around us,” he said.
“I agree,” Lucille said. “I say we try playing soldier.”
She turned to Closca, who was already donning the sentry’s tunic and helmet. She gave him the rifle. He pointed it at her back and she raised her hands in surrender. Horea and Crisan followed suit. They had used this pantomime before. Harker shrugged, hid his gun under his coat, and followed with the Prince close behind.
They marched in front of Closca and crossed the street.
The Corporal saw them and slid off the car.
“You need help there, comrade?” he asked Closca.
“No,” Closca said. “Just hauling them in for questioning.”
“What did they do?” the Corporal asked, frowning and peering through the dark at Closca’s boots. The footwear was not exactly military issue. But then the Rumanian Army was notoriously lax about its uniform policies, especially with the shortages lately.
“Damned if I know,” Closca replied. “I just follow orders.”
Closca kept walking, prodding Lucille in the back with the rifle.
“Where the hell are you taking them?” the Corporal demanded as he reached for his own weapon. “The collection point is at the fire station.”
Closca had no choice. The ruse was foiled. He swivelled the rifle away from Lucille and shot the Corporal in the chest.
The rest of the team scrambled for their guns.
The two privates went for their rifles. The Prince crouched, ready to pounce. Before he could leap the rest of the team fired their guns.
It was difficult to tell who killed which soldier with the entire team firing as one. The car and the two soldiers were perforated. The air filled with the stench and blue smoke of burnt gunpowder. Renfield stepped into the cloud and took a deep breath through his nose as if he were testing perfume. He grinned in pleasure, oblivious to the carnage that had just occurred.
The Corporal was trying to crawl away, a slime of glistening blood trailing behind him. Lucille walked over and put a bullet into his skull.
Harker gave her a brief look of disapproval. Then he wiped it from his face.
“No witnesses, I know,” he said by way of apology.
She nodded at him.
“Now we have to hurry,” she said.
They could hear shouts echo down the street. Headlights appeared, turning a far corner.
Harker led the race to their vehicles, but the Prince passed him easily. At the garage the vampire did not hesitate or wait for the key Lucille carried. He simply wrenched the door off its hinges. Lucille ordered that the two vehicles should attempt different routes out of town, making the odds better that one of them escape. A rendezvous was hastily agreed upon, a secluded vacation spot outside a tiny village north of town. Lucille demanded that each man repeat the time and place to her out loud. Then they immediately drove their separate ways.
It was a harrowing night as they wandered the town in the hearse. Harker was driving, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, as they tried to find an escape route.
Over and over they saw roadblocks ahead and had to turn down some side street. The Rumanian Army had locked up the entire town.
The danger of running into an army blockade became so dire that Lucille repeatedly had to step out of the hearse and walk to the next intersection, checking to make sure that they were not making a turn directly into an ambush.
The sun was nosing over the mountains and Lucille cursed her luck, aware that one of their best weapons, the Prince, was now rendered inoperative. She noticed that the morning traffic was beginning to back up at the checkpoints. Lucille ordered Harker to join a queue. Her theory was that the guards would be so hard-pressed to clear the traffic that their hearse would be able to pass through with but a cursory glance.
It was a tense half hour, inching ahead, horns honking about them, drivers and passengers yelling at the roadblock soldiers. By the time it was their turn the harried soldiers weren’t even bothering to ask for papers and merely waved them past with a disgruntled gesture, like fanning away a bad smell.
Curiously, Renfield slept through the entire episode, thank the gods, as she had left his tranquillizers behind. Prince Vlad lay in the back immersed in the travails of Tarzan.
The hearse was the first to arrive at the designated meeting site, a lakeside picnic area, sunny and bucolic. They waited, Lucille watching the dragonflies skim the still water as Harker scribbled in his diary. Their frightening and bloody breakout seemed a million miles and a millennia away.
She was startled out of her reverie by the arrival of the lorry. The Marx Brothers leapt from the truck and embraced Lucille, Harker, and Renfield. The Prince was safely in the shadowed interior of the hearse, and Closca thumped the roof, receiving a “Welcome back” from within.
Horea told Lucille that they had stopped in the village for fuel and, of course, food. There they made contact with a local partisan who relayed a message from her father. With some trepidation Lucille unfolded the note.
It was typically concise and clear: “Come home—immediately.”
DATED: 27 MAY 1941
TO: CSS REINHARD HEYDRICH, RSHA, REICHSFUHRER-SS
FROM: SS MAJOR WALTRAUD REIKEL
CC: HEINRICH HIMMLER, REICHSFUHRER-SS
(via diplomatic pouch)
Three items worthy of your attention—
&
nbsp; 1) Our confinement quarters are proving inadequate and a number of our detainees are soon to be sent to the Konzentration-slager in Neuengamme. We are attaching locomotive transport cars to an aero-fuel shipment already destined for Berlin. Most of those arrested so far have been Jews, gypsies, Communists, degenerates, and a small number of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Sadly, we have lost more than a few of them as they have died during the vigorous interviews.
2) We think we are closer to capturing the English spies. I have put every man I can spare on this search, but as of yet we have not apprehended anyone who can shed any further light on their whereabouts. But be assured that we will pursue this line of inquiry with extreme diligence. As soon as we have a single foreign agent you will be notified.
3) We are honored to have the SS Reichsfuhrer take an interest in our work here in the hinterlands. We realise he has many other monumental tasks in front of him, and we appreciate his attentions. The reports concerning our interrogation techniques that he requested will be forwarded in the near future. I am sure that we have found some very effective procedures that will benefit all.
Heil Hitler.
FROM THE WAR JOURNAL OF J. HARKER
(transcribed from shorthand)
As soon as we arrived at the Van Helsing residence the Professor quickly ushered myself, Lucy, Dracula, and Renfield into the house. The vampire had to be escorted across the sunlit yard with Lucy and me holding a spread jacket over his head for shade against the deadly daylight. The Marx Brothers were dismissed with grateful thanks and they drove the hearse and lorry away. I was sad to see them go, as we had shared so much together down south.
Inside the Van Helsing parlour that toad of a woman, Anka, was waiting with her associates Pavel and Farkas. Lucy hurriedly drew the curtains so that Dracula could enter. I was tired and stiff from the strain of our escape and the long ride. I wanted nothing more than a bath, a cuppa, and a bit of food, but the imperious troll, Anka, insisted we immediately get down to brass tacks.
“Our people are in great danger,” she announced with vehemence in her eyes. “The Nazis are deporting all of the people they have kidnapped and imprisoned, shipping them to the death camps in Germany.”
“When?” Lucy asked, her own fatigue disappearing from her face.
“Tonight,” Anka said. “Leaving at eight ten. Attaching cars to a train from the south.”
“How do we know this?” I asked.
“We have our people among the cleaning crew at the castle,” Anka said. “They hear and read things. They saw the order for a truck transport to the rail station.”
“And four local trucks have been requisitioned,” Farkas told us. “Fuel has been confiscated from the Rumanian Army depot.”
“The destination is Neuengamme,” Pavel added.
“Neuengamme . . .” Lucille nodded, turned to me. “This is not a death camp as such. It is a labour camp, but no one ever leaves.”
“They work the prisoners to their deaths,” Anka spat. “So it might as well be a death camp.”
“Exactly,” Van Helsing agreed.
“We must stop these trucks. If not the trucks, the train,” Lucille said, her face set in grim determination. I had seen this look before during our southerly exploits.
“If we act, there will be reprisals.” Anka shook her head. “The truck transport is too close to home.”
“True,” I added my two pence.
“But we cannot just stand by and let them take away our people,” Lucille said.
“Tin-a-ling, goddamn, find a woman if you can.
If you can’t find a woman, find a clean old man.
If you’re ever in Gibraltar, take a flying fuck at Walter.
Can you do the double shuffle when your balls hang low?”
It was, of course, Renfield, grinning like the village idiot and singing at the top of his lungs. None of us could disguise our irritation at this tomfoolery interrupting such a dire discussion.
“Do your balls hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie ’em in a knot? Can you tie ’em in a bow?
Can you throw ’em o’er your shoulder like a Continental soldier?
Can you do the double shuffle when your balls hang low?”
There was the sudden sound of hands clapping together and we all turned our attention from the barmy sergeant to Dracula, who was applauding the vulgar chantey.
“Well sung, Chanticleer,” Dracula said.
“Thank you, Master,” the Sergeant replied.
Then the Prince directed his attention to Anka. “The solution to me is simple. We intercept the railway transport several miles away from here, far enough not to arouse any reprisal against the locals. And you wish that attack not to appear to be a Resistance operation. Is this not correct? This would deter suspicion from yourselves, would it not?”
“I was thinking along those same lines,” Van Helsing said.
“How do we do that?” Farkas asked. He and Pavel had retreated against a far wall, putting as much distance between them and the vampire as was possible without leaving the room.
“Leave that to me,” Dracula told them.
“Boom,” Renfield said. Again, he had our attention.
“Boom?” Dracula grinned, flashing those canines. “I like this. A man whose talents can be defined in one word. Boom. Yes, my good friend, there will be an opportunity for your ‘boom.’”
Renfield beamed like a dog given a scrap from the master’s table. Dracula turned to the rest of us. “Can anyone provide a map that describes the route this railway follows?”
Maps were brought forth and studied. Dracula pointed to a spot he knew and asked if the train still passed through this point. This was affirmed by Pavel. The others debated the logistics, how to transport ourselves to the location the vampire had chosen, and then the subsequent transport of the passengers when and if Dracula was successful. The vampire was not forthcoming about the particulars of his plan. Anka, thus far the Prince’s archenemy, suddenly agreed to his participation, most likely out of desperation. Once certain details had been decided, the rest of the council exited to make arrangements
That left us time to catch a few winks. Dracula secluded himself in the Professor’s library. Lucy went upstairs to her bedroom. I watched her go with a forlorn regret. After a three-hour rest, I brought this journal up to date, foraged in the Van Helsing kitchen for some lunch, woke Renfield to feed him and myself. After, the Sergeant quickly went back to his bunk, and I used the cipher book to create a message for my superiors in London. I had not finished this when I heard the sound of car engines, joined by the raucous clatter of a motorcycle two-banger. I peeked through the coal chute and was relieved to see Anka and Farkas stepping out of their vehicles. Pavel was the one who arrived by two wheels. I also saw that it was near dusk.
I tapped Renfield to consciousness and helped him load a satchel with plastique explosive and pencil fuses. I armed myself with a few extra magazines and grenades.
Outside, I helped load the vehicles with the machine guns and ammunition. Then we became entangled in one of those mundane squabbles that can drive a man as batty as Renfield.
“I will not ride with that,” Anka declared, glaring at Dracula, who had stepped out into the twilight.
“Nor I,” Farkas declared.
“Such petty prattle,” the vampire mused. “Are we at war or not?”
I thought the same. Here we are trying to do our bit to save the world and these lunatics are bickering about who rides with whom like it was some family outing to the beach.
“The Count, sorry, Prince rides with me.” Van Helsing sighed. “Now, about the roadblocks. Pavel?”
“There is but one. I will take care of it,” Pavel said as he brandished the bottle of cheap wine that the Professor had given him. He stuffed it into the saddlebag of his motorcycle, then roared away.
Van Helsing tapped me on the shoulder. “You drive,” he told me. “Once we get north of Brasov prope
r it is easy. The road follows the rails.”
I drove with Dracula sitting in the passenger seat next to me. I wondered if Van Helsing had arranged this on purpose to keep the vampire and his daughter separated. In the back seat Van Helsing and Lucille bookended Renfield, not a bit cramped due to the spaciousness of the Bentley’s interior.
I took the opportunity to engage the vampire in small talk. I had discovered that he, too, was a student of languages, speaking fluent German, Hungarian, Slovak, Serbian, Wallachian, and Romany, plus his English. We traded phrases and it was as comfortable as talking to a schoolmate. I was sorry that my jealousy had prevented me from a more convivial relationship with him. I vowed to pursue this new amity.
A dense fog hung in the occasional low spot, and I had to turn on the windscreen wipers to clear the heavy mist. This piqued the vampire’s curiosity about the car, and he began to disport himself with every switch, dial, and button on the Bentley’s dash panel. He investigated the glove box, turned out my headlights. I had previously explained the functions of the speedometer, odometer, and fuel gauge. This time I gave a brief explanation on the workings of the brakes and clutch.
“Modern transportation,” he marvelled. “Genius. And you have said that the common man has been trained in the use of such mechanisms? If I had not seen it in our travels I would not have believed it.”
We passed the roadblock Pavel had informed us about. A guard shack had been erected, but the four Rumanian sentries were slumped inside and out, unconscious, Pavel’s wine bottle lying at the feet of one.
“Poison?” Dracula asked.
“A strong sedative,” Van Helsing answered.
“In some large cities there are thousands of automobiles on the road at the same time,” Lucy addressed the Prince. “So much so that there are massive delays as vehicles crowd each other—sort of travelling self-created roadblocks.”
“Thousands at once . . .” Dracula contemplated the image I had seen so many times in London that it was mundane to me. “I would very much like to observe such phenomena.”
Dracula vs. Hitler Page 25
