The Bear didn’t break step. He kept his arms swinging loose, his black raincoat wrapped tight, but not too tight, by the belt around his waist. His heels tip-tapped on the damp flagstones, right up until he stopped at the foot of the steps that led to the iron door.
He looked at the stones on the step.
Sixteen of them, like little upturned turtles in a line, all except the big one the kid had used as a knocker. It lay on the top step, all alone, waiting for someone to kick it down the road.
The Bear bent down and put the big stone at the end of the line. He restored order. It made him feel better, so he straightened his back and counted them again.
Sixteen.
He nodded.
He heard a window being opened above him.
“What do you want?”
The Bear stepped back and looked up at the man who was looking down.
“I’ve come for the German policeman.” The Bear smiled and spoke in perfect English.
“Piss off.”
The window rattled shut.
The Bear nodded, unfastened the belt on his coat, reached inside, and produced a potato masher grenade from the back of his trousers. He unscrewed the cap on the end of the handle, looked up at the window again, then walked a few paces toward the gutter at the edge of the curb.
He pulled the firing string on the grenade and tossed it at the window. He was already pressed up against the iron door when he heard the window smash.
He closed his eyes.
He felt the percussion of the explosion against his body as it thudded through the building. It felt gentler than it sounded, as if the building had skipped a heartbeat and put its hand upon his chest.
The glass scattered across the street behind him like silver snow.
He reached around under his coat again and this time produced the MP40 machine pistol that had been hanging by its strap against his back. Another rummage, and then his magician’s hand produced a magazine, which in turn clacked into the gun.
The Bear stepped backward down the steps.
He checked that the stones were still lined up amid the debris that had been blown out of the window.
They were.
He smiled, worked the bolt on the MP40, spread his feet, stared at the door, and waited.
The phone was dead.
Or at least Ken Houghton thought it was. He couldn’t be certain because of the ringing in his ears from the hand grenade that had just blown him off his feet and down the flight of stairs. He rapped the edge of his hand against the telephone cradle, then listened again.
Definitely dead.
He dropped it onto the tabletop and wiped his eyes to get some of the dust out of them. He looked down at the hole in the left leg of his trousers where a piece of doorframe had ripped through and buried itself in his thigh. He should have pulled it out as soon as it had gone in and then wrapped it with a field dressing. He knew that now, now that it was too late to take the pain.
“Fuck.”
He spat, gritty saliva that spotted the dusty floor.
“Fuck.”
Once more for good luck.
He picked up his Thompson and limped across the room to check the front door. It was still locked. He wondered if the bloke who had thrown the hand grenade was still out there. Maybe there was more than one of them? He looked at the stairs he had just tumbled down and considered going up again to look, and then decided against it.
However many there were, they’d have to come through the door.
He looked over his shoulder to the staircase that led to the back of the building, and down to the cellar where the prisoners were being held. He could hear footsteps coming fast.
Ken wished he’d pulled out the wood splinter earlier.
The Bear looked up into the sky and frowned.
He checked his watch, stared at the second hand, then shook his wrist and placed it to his ear.
A ratter-tatter tick-tock.
He looked up at the sky again. It was blue, much bluer than before. Finally it was going to be a nice day. He smiled, thought about throwing in another grenade, then stepped back from the door and down the steps onto the street again.
Eyes on the shattered window, then up to the sky, then finally, he saw the smoke from the fire he had set at the back of the warehouse twenty minutes earlier. He was going to flush them out, just like in the old days out east. Light the fire, fan the smoke, cover the exit, and kill some rats.
There was smoke. Neumann noticed it first.
It had started a minute or two after he’d heard the faint report of the explosion. It had been a wisp to start with. But now, thick black smoke that seemed to have mass was pushing its way under the door and into the cell. The young Brit on the bed closest to the door had produced a key from somewhere and had confirmed his cellmates’ suspicions by unlocking his own cuff and climbing off his bed.
He’d been a plant, just like they knew he was. But now he was a plant who was panicking.
He had a key for the cuffs, but he didn’t have one for the door.
He was banging on it with his fists and shouting for help.
Help wasn’t coming.
“Use your blanket,” said Neumann.
“What?” The banging stopped and the kid looked at him.
“Use your blanket to block the bottom of the door.”
The Brit looked at the smoke snaking through, then grabbed his blanket and quickly got onto all fours and jammed it as tight as it would go against the narrow gap.
Neumann knew a blanket at the bottom was going to slow the smoke down, but it wasn’t going to stop it.
“Take off our cuffs.”
The Brit looked over.
“Fuck off.”
“We’ll die if you don’t.”
“I’ll die if I do.” The Brit nodded to the two German privates, who were sitting upright on their beds staring at him.
Neumann had to concede they didn’t look happy, but tried again anyway.
“We might be able to break through the door with a bed frame as a ram.”
“If there is a fire out there, someone will come and get us.” The Brit went back to stuffing the blanket against the door.
“They’ll be coming to get you.”
“They’ll get all of us.” The Brit looked at Neumann. “I promise.”
Neumann wasn’t so certain.
“Try the phone again.” Norman the jailer was pointing his shotgun up the stairs while Ken was covering the still-locked front door.
“I told you, they’ve cut the lines.”
“We can’t just sit ’ere waiting.”
“The kid on lookout will have rung for backup.”
“What if all the phones are off again?”
“Then he’ll have run to get them, he knows the drill.”
“They should never ’ave left just two of us in ’ere.”
“Iris needed people on the streets. Stop worrying.”
Norman looked over his shoulder toward Ken, who was sitting on a chair by the table, covering the iron door with his Thompson. “Stop worrying?” Norman’s voice drifted up an octave. “The place is on fuckin’ fire and we can’t get out.”
Ken was doing his best to close up the wound in his leg. Blood was pooling on the floor under the table.
“Go up, take a look if you can see anyone. It might just have been communists causing trouble.”
“What if they’re up there?” Norman didn’t move.
“You said it yourself, the place is on fire. They’re hardly likely to be playing hide-and-fucking-seek. Go and look if they are in the street. I’m bleeding bad here, go take a look.”
Norman licked his lips. They tasted of burnt rubber from the smoke. He took another look at Ken, then set off slowly up the stairs, his shotgun leading the way.
It took him a full minute to reach the landing. He leaned against the wall, took a deep breath, and popped out his head into the short corridor.
Empty.
He leaned back against the wall, shotgun tight to his chest, barrel up high, cold metal against his right temple. He closed his eyes, took another breath, then moved fast toward the front room where the grenade had gone off five minutes earlier.
Empty.
He swooped the shotgun around once more for good luck.
Some of the floorboards were shredded from the grenade. He could see through to the empty room below, and as he crossed the floor he felt it give a little on its damaged joists.
He stopped short of the window and checked the doorway over his shoulder.
He could see the smoke in the hallway. Rubbery black, hanging by the gray ceiling and creeping across the room from the corridor. He felt the tickle of a cough and thought about young Porter downstairs in the cell with the Germans.
He should have released the kid before he had gone to investigate the sound of the grenade going off. Norman knew he didn’t have much time, and judging by the blood on the floor downstairs, Ken didn’t have much time either. But young Porter—the kid had less than the pair of them put together.
Norman moved toward the window.
He kept low, eyes on the buildings across the street. They stared back with boarded-up windows, same as they had done for the last few years. He knelt, shoulder level with the sill.
One . . . two . . . three!
He looked down into the street and then ducked back again. His breath was coming in short chunks. He didn’t know if it was because of the smoke or his nerves, but he tried to steady it anyway. He shuffled forward a few inches to another position, paused. One . . . two . . . three!
Head up. This time a look left and right, then a bob, and then another check up and down the street.
Empty. He coughed. The smoke was getting worse by the second.
They needed to get out.
The Bear was pushed in so tight to the door, he felt like the knocker.
He could smell the smoke now as well as see it. The fire he had set at the back of the warehouse was doing well. The preparations he had made during the night had paid off. He’d collected wood and tires from the stockpiles he had hidden around the docks and then taken his time placing them carefully up against the boarded-up windows and cellar skylights.
The Bear knew people. He understood them better than they understood themselves. If you wanted to funnel people, you funneled fire: it worked every time.
All it took was a liter of petrol, and a degree of patience.
The Bear knew the front door was going to open.
And when it did, he knew he’d be ready.
“There’s no fucker out there!” Norman was running down the stairs.
“You’re sure?” Ken had rested the Thompson on the table.
“I’m telling you, the road is clear.”
“What about opposite?” A slick of sweat sheened his face.
“Clear.” Norman was looking down the corridor that led down to the cellar. It was blacker than ever. The smoke was so thick, it looked like the ceiling was a slow-moving thunder cloud. It was oil-slick black, searching for air, snaking past him and chasing up the staircase.
“Get the door.” Ken’s face looked gray.
“What about the kid in the cell?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Norman looked at Ken, considered his options, then went to get the kid from the cellar. Head low, shotgun in one hand, scarf pulled up to cover his mouth, he headed for the cells.
The smoke was bad, a thick, black, choking smog that stung his eyes and made them water. He tried to breathe in shallow gasps as he descended into the depths of the building, his eyes stung closed as he journeyed into hell.
Ken cursed.
He left the Thompson as he lurched toward the door. His leg was slick with greasy blood. He tried to clamp a hand around the wound as he moved, but it slid like soap and made him cry out and drop to his good knee.
He took a look at the door: eight feet, two bolts, and one mortise. That was all it was, and then he’d be on the street and out of the smoke. He sucked it up, the pain, the smoke, the fear, and crawled to the door.
He was going to get out. He was going to be okay. He was going to go home and he was going to hold his wife and tell her she had been right. He was too old for this kind of shit.
He made it to the door and worked the bottom bolt.
Iron on iron.
What he had been waiting for.
The Bear leaned forward, risked a glance at the smoke-billowing window on the first floor, stepped down onto the curb, and checked the bolt on the MP40.
The mortise took the longest.
Ken didn’t know how he had managed to get so much blood on his hands. The key had slid from his fingers twice before he had managed to insert and finally turn it. He was coughing now, coughing hard. He took a moment, lying at the foot of the door, sucking in the air that was leaking underneath, working up enough strength to get to his feet to pull that top bolt and then get outside.
He almost crawled up the metal, an inch at a time. The weight of his body leaning on the door made the bolt slide easily, with just one flick of his hand. He gripped the handle and pulled it open.
It seemed to take forever. He had to squirm out of the way as it pulled back on the old hinges he’d heard moan a hundred times before. The cold air of the street washed over him as he fell forward onto the top step, and he had to grab at the frame to stop himself from falling straight down onto the street.
He lifted his head.
The Bear.
Standing at the bottom of the steps, holding an MP40.
Ken knew who it was. Iris had talked about the German. She had warned him to be careful, and yet here he was, and Ken was about to die.
The Bear smiled.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Fuck you.”
“How many others are inside?”
Ken wanted to say fuck you again, but his teeth were clenched too tightly together.
He was scared, not as brave as he thought he would be, and a little disappointed in himself.
He didn’t want to die.
“How many?” the Bear asked again.
The best Ken could do was shake his head.
The Bear nodded, like he understood, and then shot Ken Houghton dead to put him out of his misery.
The Bear tossed another grenade past Ken into the building, just in case there was anyone hiding in the room behind the door.
The door slammed into Ken’s legs and then hammered back open as the air rushed back into the room. The Bear hopped over the Englishman and dropped to one knee at the threshold.
He stared into the room. It looked empty because of the smoke, but that didn’t mean it was. The Bear entered quickly and stepped to one side before dropping to his knee again, eyes on the stairs through the smoke. He took one hand off the magazine of the MP40 and pulled the damp silk scarf he had worn especially over his mouth and nose.
Hand back on the magazine, he waited.
Norman had nearly not made it to the cell.
He was dizzy, disorientated, and almost on his belly as he edged across the flagstone floor. He’d spent months in the cellar. He knew it like the back of his hand, but as the smoke pushed down, he realized he was struggling to find his way.
He’d long since lost the shotgun, but long since stopped caring. What good was a gun when you were dead?
He was now certain he was going to die, but it was too far to go back now, so he carried on.
Maybe the kid could make it out? He could hear them banging on the door. Properly banging. Terrified banging. The sort of banging that sounded like drowning.
He found the keys by memory. On the chain, fastened to the same loop, kept in the same pocket; comforting to know he could remember that, despite everything. He knelt in front of the door, eyes closed, feeling for the lock, inserting the key. The door opened and he fell into the cell.
The air was clearer. He could feel hands pulling him insi
de as the door slammed shut behind him. Someone threw water over his face and he revived a little. It was the policeman, the one they had brought in the night before. Porter must have released the others.
The kid must be crazy.
The copper slapped him, so Norman lifted his hand to stop him doing it again.
“It’s all right . . . I’m all right.” Norman was coughing hard, and his eyes were stinging. He squeezed them tight, and then used his hand to wipe some of the splashed water into them.
“We need to get out.”
Norman looked around and saw the kid, Porter, standing next to the door, a ripped-up sheet wrapped around his face.
“Can you stand?” The German copper was calm.
Norman nodded, so they helped him up off the floor. Someone tied a scrap of sheet around his mouth, and the copper gave him a shake.
“Can you show us the quickest way out?”
Norman nodded as another coughing fit took hold.
“We all have to hold on to each other, but move quick, yes?” The copper was shouting at the others while helping Norman to stand up.
Everyone nodded.
“Are you ready?” The copper took a handful of the back of Norman’s jacket.
“Yeah.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
The Bear watched them walk past him as if he weren’t even there. He’d been listening to the coughing for six seconds before he’d made them out through the fumes. They’d been hunched, hands holding on to each other like a chain of elephants as they shuffled past, then down the steps and out into the street.
They collapsed in a heap of huffing and puffing.
He gave them a few seconds to get their breath, then followed them out.
He shot Norman first. The jailer was still lying on the ground where he had fallen down the steps. The remaining men stared back at him, rags still over their faces, sucking in and out with each shock-snatched breath.
The Bear pulled down his scarf. “Neumann?” he asked in German as the MP40 came back up to his shoulder.
Nobody moved an inch.
The Bear gestured to Norman on the ground, then back at the group in front of him.
An Army of One: A John Rossett Novel Page 22
