The Swede scoffed. “Yeah, right. And those above?”
“If they're smart, they'll run out of the building before they choke to death. They'll be damaged but not dead.”
Richter heard the lie in the man's voice and smiled to himself. The question was, was Kaminski only lying to his friends, or was he lying to himself?
“And if it doesn't work? Or they have masks?” Frece demanded.
Ettore walked over and put a hand on the man's shoulder. “We've been through all this. It will work.”
“Because it has to,” Kaminski said.
“Aye, because it has to,” Ettore confirmed.
Frece nodded, pacified if only for the moment.
It was then the commander saw the four of them shared a connection. They were convinced they were going to get away with this. They were actually convinced.
“Where do you think she is, Dom?” Quintus asked.
Kaminski shook his head.
When Richter figured out who he meant, he snarled. He didn't know how, but he would kill all of them. Even the girl.
4
The gate was open, and she ran through it.
“Stop!” Harald yelled. “I demand you stop!”
Ahead of her, she saw a single headlight cutting its way through the darkness. Someone had taken the base's motorcycle out on patrol, and it was headed towards the both of them. Behind her, Harald was closing in. The two would squeeze her along the path until they met, and she would be caught.
Stopping, she looked at what lay around her. She had never been so close to the crater before, had never felt its breath rising on the wind as she did now. A new scent hit her nostrils, something charred and burnt. She had heard about the explosion in the nearby cave, and she saw a number of loose rocks that had been blasted away from the hillside. The cave itself was filled with rubble, but the rubble had created a few new ruts and crevices. She contemplated only for a moment, then crawled under one. It wouldn't be a perfect hiding spot in broad daylight, but it wasn't bad in the dark. As she lowered her head to the ground, Harald passed just beyond her spot, then stopped.
“No one has to know,” he called. “I understand, Lucja. You may not think I do, but I do. This place is enough to drive anyone away. But this isn't helping anyone. Your father isn't helping anyone either if he's trying to escape again. I told you the commander doesn't like excuses, Lucja, and I meant it. If he catches you or your papa, you know what he'll do. If you come to me now, we can talk this through. We might even be able to forget it happened. Just tell me where you are and what your father is planning. If you hurry, we can still save him.” He waited, his hands on his hips. “Goddammit girl, where are you? You think this is easy for me, putting my reputation on the line? Given all I've done, you'd think you would owe me a little gratitude. But no! No, you're going to do what you're going to do. Is that right?” He was furious now, spitting the words at her. How quickly he could change when he didn't get his way. “I know you're here. Get out here! I order you to get out here! I order you!”
In the dark, Lucja waited, still holding her breath. He was close, so close.
After a moment, his footsteps trailed off. She could hear him heading around the edge of the crater, calling her name every now and again. The motorcycle drew nearer, and somewhere above, she could hear the engine shut off. It meant there were now two soldiers in the area instead of one. Whomever had been out on patrol had probably heard Harald's shouts.
The vehicle depot lay well behind her, and she had to find a way back. Ari and her father were counting on her, and if she wasn't there, she didn't know what they would do.
After a time, she resolved to have a peek over the rocks. She hadn't heard anything for a good long while, so she stuck her head up. The silence was so complete that she was almost confident.
In that moment, Harald reached down and dragged her out by the hair. “I've got you,” he said.
5
Moses had spoken to God through a burning bush. And so fire, in a way, was like God. It had the power to give life or take it. It had the power to warm you or steal the skin off of your back. Hans wondered if the god of fire would save him now, or if it would kill him. The room was small. And the fire would be big.
Or maybe the fire Moses saw wasn't really like God. Maybe it was more like a telephone, and God was on the other end of it. It was a question he had never asked his mother.
The Republic's three half-tracks sat in the hangar, lined up like ducks along the wall. Hans knew the exact specs for each. “Production year 1938,” he whispered. “Six cylinders. A hundred horsepower. Weight, seven thousand kilograms. Fuel tank, one hundred ten liters. Maybe full,” he said, lying on his back underneath of one of the vehicles and tapping the metal box over his head. Then, hearing the result, “Maybe not.”
They said he was dumb, but he wasn't. He knew things. He knew the exact specs on all the Kdfz models, their engine and towing capabilities. He knew the exact location of their fuel tanks. He knew the army only had these half-tracks and one motorcycle—conspicuously absent from the garage tonight—and that they were being kept in storage while the hunt for Kriege was still on. He knew the guard who was usually here in the evening, a man named Jonas, was excused for the celebration. He knew he was here alone.
Hans had always been good with his hands. He was good at making tools and fixing things. He wasn't school smart, though (“Oh my boy, er tickt nicht richtig,” his mother used to say whenever he showed her his marks. Hans had no idea what she meant, but he supposed it meant he wasn't school smart, which he wasn't.). So the army had put him in with the grunts.
Sliding out from underneath of the truck, Hans got up and brushed himself off. The fire would be big, but he wasn't scared. He had brought Milo along.
Milo had once been a dog that belonged to one of the whalers on the shore. The man probably didn't like Milo, because he locked him out of his cabin while he slept. Milo had spent his nights wandering up the cliffs in search of food. He had such pretty white and gray fur, like a sled dog. But Hans didn't want Milo to pull a sled. He treated all of his friends like equals.
The doggy was slow to come around, but when he got his leg stuck in a seal trap, Hans knew what to do. Milo didn't need his rear leg. In fact, he was too heavy, period. So once Hans had tied a rope around his snout (for Milo's own safety, really), the boy had sawed him in half at the waist. It made a terrible mess, but it made Milo a lot lighter and a lot friendlier to take around.
Since he was Hans's newest and best friend, the boy decided to take him along to the garage. It was dangerous, but so was leaving Milo alone in the cliffs. That's what his old owner had done, and Hans didn't want to be like him. They'd be friends, and he would just tell Milo to be quiet so no one would hear them. Of course, Milo didn't complain.
The doggie was sitting on the concrete lip behind the half-tracks with his tongue hanging out. Hans went over and pet him on the head. Milo fell over, something rotten spilling out of his torso. But Hans brushed the piece away and set him upright. He was a good doggie, he was.
He missed Boris, his person friend, but Milo would do for now. They would pee together outside, like he and Boris used to do. Or maybe he would pee and Milo would watch since the dog didn't have a lower half any more. Hans grabbed the lump of a package he had placed on the ground next to his friend. As he did, he saw Milo was staring. “Don't look at me like that,” he said. “It makes me feel funny. I don't like feeling funny.” He did have a plan, kind of. Once the base was gone, they would head to the other end of the island. When the time was right, he could ride one of those big fishy ships back home. Maybe he could sneak on. Or maybe he would find a new person friend like Boris who would let him on. And he could be a real sailor and join the navy. Maybe one day, he would forget about the army and get a place of his own.
And a new Thinking Place. Yes, that would be fine.
It wasn't his only dream, either. He dreamed of replacing all of his friends from
the cave. He dreamed of playing on the commander with a knife and one of his saw tools. Yes, he would play on him really good and bloody. And maybe pee on him.
With his thing.
But first, he had to be like Moses.
Hans climbed into the back of one of the half-tracks and searched under the seats. He found the hidden storage compartment, the one right above the engine. He still had the lump under his coat, and he pulled it out, careful not to detonate it too soon.
6
One of the towers appeared deserted, the other held a single guard. Dominik could see little else, save for a few souls scattered near the office bunker where the party was being held. Using the dark to his advantage, he ducked inside the prisoners' bunker and searched it quickly. “Lucja?” he called. “Are you here?”
The rooms were exactly as he had left them, and there was no sign of her. Zofia's bear stared at him from the middle of the bed, its button eyes hollow and dark.
“Ettore,” he whispered. The two of them had split up, Dominik going to the prisoners' bunker, Ettore heading to the vehicle depot. The man could have intercepted her by now. Dominik ran out the door, throwing caution to the wind. Zofia was gone, and he could not lose Lucja too. It had been foolish to let her go alone.
He passed in front of the office bunker and then threw himself into shadow as two German soldiers stumbled outside. From the open door, he could hear music playing, could smell sweet tobacco wafting from within.
“A good night for a walk,” one of the men said, lighting a cigarette.
“Bah, tell it to your girl,” said the other, lighting his own. “I'm not holding your hand.”
“How about I tell it to your girl?”
“Go ahead. She'll hold more than your hand, that one.”
They both laughed crazy, drunken laughter.
“I'm going to check on Linus,” the first one said. He started walking in the direction of the occupied tower.
The other one waved him off, leaning against the bunker and smoking. Dominik waited, cursing every lost second. A minute later, the wandering soldier came back.
“What did he say?” the other man asked.
“He said the lieutenant was shouting about something. Running around like a fool. Suppose he won't be joining us.”
“And Linus isn't coming either?”
“Nah. He's got orders.”
They opened the door, and the pair of them began stumbling back inside.
“Guess we'll have to drink enough for him too, then.”
They laughed, and the door shut. Dominik was alone once more.
Running across the camp, he managed to reach the depot without being seen. At least, he didn't think he was seen, either by the man in the watch tower, or any stragglers on the grounds. Strangely, he saw that the door to the place was ajar when he arrived, the light from the inside spilling out. If his daughter was here, why had she left it open?
Then he saw a figure outside the door, hiding at the corner. The figure turned and looked right at him. Dominik froze, a rabbit caught in the sights of a hunter. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw it was only Ettore. Of course it was Ettore. What soldier would hide in the shadows of his own base? The man motioned him over.
As Dominik approached, he was about to ask him what he had seen, but Ettore put a finger to his lips, silencing him. He pointed to the open door. Adjusting his position, Dominik saw there were two figures inside.
But neither one was his daughter.
7
Several minutes earlier, Boris Seiler wandered from the party to take a piss. He got ten steps outside and realized he wasn't going to make it to the bathroom. The bottle he had in his hand dropped to the ground, and he spun towards the bunker wall. His flow had already begun when he realized he should be on the lookout for the lieutenant. The cocksucker was wound tighter than a clock spring, and Seiler had no intention of getting his head smashed. Maybe the lieutenant just didn't take to the assignment. The key to taking any assignment you didn't like, Seiler knew, was finding ways to cope. He and Hans had found ways to cope, even if the kid was soft in the head. Boris wasn't overly bothered though; the lieutenant was off somewhere, probably talking to that Kaminski girl. The man had certainly spent enough time with her, as clever as he thought he was. Ha! And they thought Hans was sick.
Seiler wondered where the boy was now. He'd run off, and he hadn't been seen since. Seiler understood why, of course, but for God's sake, they were just animals. Zimmer's death was another story, but even that was an accident.
His stream dissipated and Seiler buckled his pants, eager to get back to the party. But suddenly, he heard shouts, and even through the liquor haze, they gave him pause: “Stop! I demand you stop!”
It was the lieutenant's voice, and it was coming from somewhere close.
Seiler drew his pistol. Two pairs of footsteps sounded off and then faded. He stumbled after them, his gun poised. He found that once he was in the open, however, he couldn't see much of anything. Whomever had been there was gone. Then, he noticed an unusual light coming from beneath the door at the vehicle depot. He had seen Jonas at the party earlier, and he knew the depot was supposed to be locked and sealed. Something was amiss.
The door offered no resistance as he thrust it open, ready to confront the lieutenant in a tryst with the Kaminski girl. Instead, he found the last person he expected to see.
“Hello Boris,” Hans said.
“What?”
The Gestapo agent couldn't believe it. Moments before, he had been thinking of the boy, and here he was, standing before him with what looked like a wired remote control in his hand. Seiler's gaze moved to the line of trucks against the wall, the tools scattered on the ground, the dog Hans had cut in half. When his gaze returned to the remote, the pieces began to fall together. It all made sense now. The trap they had set for the penguin, the explosion at the crater, the dead ensign who had been buried under the rubble in the cave... the boy had been stealing explosives. Here in the vehicle depot, he had set one mother lode of a goddamned bomb.
“What are you doing?”
“It's time for us to get out of here,” Hans said.
“No... no, you cannot do this!” He lunged forward, but he was too slow. The damned drink!
“You and me, Boris! We'll get out of here! We'll get on a boat! We'll be ship captains!”
“Give me that, boy!”
“No!” Hans shouted.
The boy tried to pull the box away, but Seiler was dragging him to the ground, his weight bearing down on top of him.
“I'll push it! I will!”
With dismay, Seiler saw the kid was crying. He was actually crying.
“I want to be like Moses,” Hans said. “You and me, Boris. You, and me, and Milo.” His thumb clicked over the large green button at the top of the device.
The last thing Seiler saw was the image of two prisoners standing outside the depot door, looking stunned. Then, the fire took him.
Chapter 21: The Colony
The Island:
Present Day
1
“They came with the dark,” Kate said. She set Dominik's diary on the ground beside her and looked at the darkening sky. It was almost too black to see now. The moon lay at the edge of the horizon, giant and red. It cast no light upon the fortress.
“Just a minute.” AJ had fashioned a dozen torches out of wood and old rags, and he was in the process of placing them around the camp. When he finished, he set them ablaze, one by one. “We should be able to see now, at least. What were you saying?”
“I said they came with the dark. When the sun set, that's when... that's when it happened.”
“When this place was destroyed.”
“Yes. When they came and took this place for their own.”
AJ cast a glance to the gate and beyond, looking at the fleshy shapes overhanging the hills. He studied them a long moment. “What else did it say?”
“They were prisoners here, that man
and his family. The Carrion were smaller then, but they were studying it.” She paused and then clarified: “They were studying how to kill it.”
“And that stuff down in the tank, it does that?”
She nodded. “Better than acid.”
“Better than acid,” he whispered, looking back in the direction of The Aeschylus. “They've been here a long time. The Carrion, I mean. They've been here a long time.”
“Oh yes.”
“What do you think they are? I mean really. You read the book, Kate, what do you think? What did they think?”
At first, she was taken aback; she hadn't had a moment's breath to think about their situation. But when she stopped, she realized that wasn't quite true. She had been thinking about it, if only in the back of her mind.
“I think they're colonizing us.”
“Who? The Carrion?”
“No. Whoever sent them. Whoever put them here. You know about global warming, right?”
“Sure. The average temperature around the globe is heating up. Too many people, too much pollution.”
“No,” she said. “That might be the general belief, but it's not true. Global temperatures have changed only a fraction of a degree. Some parts of the globe have even gotten cooler within the last hundred years. But some areas have gotten warmer, a lot warmer. That's how both sides manipulate the data. It's because the data changes depending on what region you're talking about. The thing is, it's getting warmer in the places that matter. Places like the polar ice caps. Places like the south pole. The ice shelves are melting.”
A smile played across his lips. “The place you're going is a little far-fetched.”
“No!” She found her voice was emphatic and couldn't quite control it. “You heard Gideon. The sole purpose of those things is to generate heat. They're not trying to change things all over the earth, because they don't have to! They're changing things in the only places that matter. When the ice caps are gone, and the ice shelves melt—”
“Parts of the earth will flood,” he said. His voice was lower now, contemplative.
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