Deal with the Devil

by J. Gunnar Grey

  The shadows across the ballroom’s floor shifted. Best eased from Stoner’s office doorway, following Peter’s example and stalking Faust openly. After two steps he froze, then aimed Stoner’s Colt revolver toward the desks and fired once. Beyond the sitting area, Peter also fired. The bullets whanged as they scored metal.

  Her fingers wrapped about the doorjamb and tightened. Perhaps she should sneak upstairs for Carmichael’s Lee Enfield. Whatever was going on upstairs couldn’t possibly be worse than helplessly watching this.

  Peter giggled, a high screechy old-man sound that shivered up her spine. He broke open the rifle, inserted another round, and snapped the bolt home. His stare never left the desks as he settled the rifle stock against his shoulder and resumed stalking her chosen target.

  Or she could sneak out the glass door, run back to Woodrow for the other shotgun, or down to the main gate for Reynolds’ Lee Enfield, or find the other squad members and bring help. But by the time she returned, it could be too late.

  No, she couldn’t leave him again.

  But she had to do something.

  Best took another cautious step away from Stoner’s office. The Colt revolver swung along the line of desks, swung back.

  She eased further around the doorjamb. Bruckmann lay in a pool of blood. The light from Stoner’s desk lamp didn’t reach his motionless form. His Webley revolver, strapped to his hip, formed a visible bump. One quick dash, and she could grab it and join Faust behind the desks.

  One quick dash. Right in front of Best.

  She hauled in a deep breath. But before she could take the first step, Best glanced over. He seemed to see in the dark, cutting through the shadows and staring right at her. No — the shadows had gone. Moonlight poured through the glass walls and silhouetted her against the doorjamb.

  Best swung the revolver toward her. She whipped back around the doorjamb as the Colt fired, a single sharp crack, followed within a second by the solid blast of the shotgun. Her heart leapt — Faust still lived, hidden in the tangle of the desks.

  But the shotgun’s blast was followed by the higher report of Peter’s rifle, and she could no longer be certain of that fact.

  Chapter Ninety

  night

  Margeaux Hall

  Aggravating, ferocious, headstrong — Faust recoiled behind the desk, shotgun braced against his hip. The expected rifle bullet screamed through metal, not close. The sharp tang of cordite choked his lungs, sharper than cigarette smoke and not nearly as satisfying. Damp heat scorched his face. He squirmed between the desks, ignoring the slicing pain in his arm, and glanced through the crouching shadows of furniture legs and rolling chairs. Moonlight flooded the vestibule but the doorway was again empty. No dark pool stained the brick floor, and no huddled, motionless form beyond Bruckmann’s stopped his pulse. She’d taken cover and hopefully wouldn’t try such a crazy stunt again. But now they knew she hid there. If Faust went down, she’d be next.

  Cold fear drenched his clenched stomach and he shivered through the sweat. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Without looking down, Faust broke open the shotgun, inserted another shell, and eased it closed. He rolled to his left side, squirmed to his knees, and peered between desks toward the far end of the ballroom. Best, in Stoner’s office, had proved himself a lousy shot. Besides, if he’d fired twice at Tanyon, once at Bruckmann, once at Faust, and once at Jennifer, the six-shot revolver had just about used all its ammunition and Best wouldn’t likely carry spare Colt rounds rolling about his empty prisoner’s pockets.

  But the fragging gardener was another matter. Faust peered over the desk and scanned the distant edges of the ballroom. There — almost at the windows, in one of the darkest corners behind the farthest sofa, was the steady purposeful motion of a stalking hunter. The two gunmen had to be working together. They seemed intent on taking him in a crossfire, so perhaps he could use their strategy against them. If he pressed Best to waste his last round and then charged across the ballroom, he could use the closest sofa as cover and take down the gardener, then deal with Best at his leisure. He gathered his feet beneath him, easing back along the line of desks toward Stoner’s office. As soon as the moonbeams darkened again, he’d charge.

  The distant stalking motion ceased. A moment later, the gardener fired, the rifle’s muzzle flash momentarily lighting the corner and flaring across the gleeful lined face. Faust ducked behind the desk. But it wasn’t aimed at him, nor at where he’d been, more toward Bruckmann’s huddled form but higher and closer to the vestibule. Faust’s heart lurched into his throat. Surely she wouldn’t — not again—

  He couldn’t take the chance. He couldn’t leave her unguarded until Best fired his last shot. He’d have to draw it to himself. Faust rose to his knees behind the desk, tucking the shotgun into his right shoulder and aligning the barrel at where he’d last seen that stalking hunter. He couldn’t seriously injure the gardener from this distance, but he could teach the old man some respect before dealing with Best. He’d fired the first shot from the hip, which explained why he hadn’t hit anything. Now he needed accuracy and cripes, this was going to hurt.

  Faust gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger.

  The shotgun’s solid blast echoed in the ballroom, flooding the desk area with choking gunpowder, and the recoil kicked his injured shoulder like a mule. A shockwave of agony flashed along his arm. His elbow convulsed down against his side, dragging the stock lower and jerking the barrel toward the ceiling. White fireworks exploded behind his eyes. In the corner, movement flashed, not cautiously, and the gardener ducked behind the farthest sofa.

  Something moved near Stoner’s office doorway. Faust forced his eyes to focus despite the pain, forced his hands to break open the shotgun and insert another shell. Best stood framed against the desk lamp’s light, the revolver’s barrel panning the ballroom. For a second Faust froze, his breath catching. Even knowing Best was a lousy shot didn’t make this easy. Maybe it would be safest to stand inside the shadow Best aimed at — but then Best turned toward the vestibule. The revolver’s barrel swung to follow.

  Yep, she had. The ballroom became suddenly colder, tingling shivers whispering across his overheated face. Faust snapped the shotgun closed with the loudest clack he could manage. Best glanced over, glanced back, and aimed at the vestibule.

  Frag. Faust scrambled to his feet and slammed his boot sole into the closest office chair. It spun from behind the desk, smashed into the next desk over, and clattered away, whirling in a slowing circle. His descending heel caught on the scatter rug. He stumbled back, sat hard on another desk, let himself slide down to the floor. Papers scattered, whispered, floated down, and something hard thunked beside him.

  Best jerked back around, aimed at the moving chair, and fired. Faust raised the shotgun, but before he drew a bead, Best ducked back into Stoner’s office, followed seconds later by a metallic click and then another, as if he’d tried to fire twice more and the barrel snapped home on nothing. A heartening sound. Faust scrambled up and gathered himself for the sprint.

  Motion to his left whipped his head around before he’d stepped beyond the first desk. A graceful soundless form, silhouetted by the glow behind her, dashed through the moonbeams toward Bruckmann’s motionless huddle. She would be too inviting a target for the gardener to resist. Faust braced the shotgun and fired again toward the far corner, just as the muzzle flash leapt from behind the sofa. Jennifer jumped back and paused in full view, her head swiveling from the corner to Bruckmann, then swiftly to the desks. Her glance crossed his without meshing, as if she didn’t see him, instead tracking the chair as it slowed to a stop.

  Best stepped around the doorjamb, aiming the Colt revolver at Jennifer. If he’d found ammunition — and in the guardroom Tanyon had flipped open the cylinder of a Webley revolver, slid in a pre-loaded moon clip of six rounds, and closed and locked the cylinder in place. The entire operation had taken mere seconds and Faust had only heard two clicks, just like the ones
he’d heard a moment ago from Stoner’s office.

  Time slipped out of joint, like an arm from a shoulder socket, like a ball bearing from a Panzer track. Jennifer froze. In the wash of light from the desk lamp, Best’s finger curved in a hard edge around the revolver’s trigger. Cold glints flashed from his pitiless eye. Metal clicked from the far corner; the gardener had reloaded and the opportunity was gone. Forget the moonlight.

  “Jennifer, run!” Faust scrambled between desks and charged, not the far corner, but Best. His boots thumped on the hardwood floor.

  Her head and Best’s jerked around. She gasped, then whirled and ran, vanishing into the vestibule. Best ducked back into Stoner’s office, his arm swinging the revolver about the doorjamb. Any moment now the gardener would fire. Shy of the desk lamp’s pool, Faust twisted, let his thigh slam into the last desk as a brake, wrenched himself down behind it. He crouched, slipped sideways to the next desk along, vacating the spot where he’d last been seen. The rifle cracked, followed by the revolver’s sharper report. Both shots whanged into the desk Faust had just left.

  In the sudden silence, the gardener’s shrill giggle seemed obscene.

  Faust panted as if he’d run a mile. His shaking fingers reloaded the shotgun. That had been close. He had to find a way to end this or they’d both die — him when he made a mistake or the enemy gunmen trapped him, Jennifer a minute later.

  Cautiously he scanned the far end of the ballroom. The gardener ran in a crouching rush, back toward the still-open door to the residential wing. Something had changed his plans. Faust cast about the shadows for clues and froze.

  The pool of moonlight at the foot of the eastern stairwell rippled. It could be some accomplice of Best’s — but the gardener’s sudden retreat implied otherwise. Faust’s pulse accelerated. Near the residential wing’s doorway, the rushing gardener halted and lifted the rifle.

  “Pym, take cover!” Faust changed desks again. If he could keep Best firing at the wrong one, they could waste this moon clip, too. “It’s the blasted gardener. Kill him if you can!”

  The moonlit pool warped then stilled as footsteps thudded from the stairs to the floor. The gardener fired toward the stairwell, gunpowder smoke silhouetted in the muzzle flash. Cordite rolled over the desks. Faust shivered beneath his sweat. Then the gardener ducked through the residential wing’s door, leaving it open behind him.

  “Pym?” Faust said.

  “I’m all right.” The corporal called from behind the wall hiding the stairwell, at a right angle to the residential wing’s doorway. From there, he wouldn’t have a good line at the gardener, but the gardener wouldn’t get a good shot at him, either. “Major?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” If he could get his breathing under control, he’d be even better.

  “Major Faust?” It was Best’s voice, calling from Stoner’s office. He spoke in German and his voice wavered. “This is a mistake. It’s all a mistake. I can’t control this crazy Welshman. He’s a nationalist, he’s mad, you see he’s mad.”

  Yeah, right, just as Norris hadn’t hurt anyone. “You tried to shoot me.” Without thinking, Faust spoke in German, too.

  “I thought you were trying to shoot me.” The words tumbled out rapidly, as if a verbal dam had burst. “But we must leave now. Otherwise the plane will be gone before we reach the landing spot.”

  Faust quit breathing. He’d assumed Best lied about the plane. If he hadn’t, if there really was a means of getting home, best yet if Jennifer had the sense to slip upstairs and hide—

  Could he trust Best? For crying out cats, Stoner had driven him crazy with this routine and he wasn’t climbing back aboard the carousel. He had to make a decision and stick with it.

  “Where’s the landing spot?”

  Best didn’t hesitate. “I’ll show you.”

  So much for trust. And hadn’t he been through this routine with Erhard? Come for a ride with papa—

  But if there existed the slightest chance of getting back home without Jennifer being killed—

  “We must leave now or it will be too late.”

  Something about Best’s tone of voice, an intense desperation hovering short of panic, sounded utterly believable. Best wanted out of here as much as Faust did. Surely a man smart enough to be a university professor wasn’t stupid enough to think he could just walk through the gate and escape. Surely he knew if he didn’t have a plane coming to fetch him, he faced recapture and retribution within hours.

  Maybe Best hadn’t lied about the plane.

  Hope surged through Faust, rushing from his heart to his fingertips. He eased back on his heels and risked a swift glance about the ballroom. Not a moonbeam rippled. Jennifer, he knew, didn’t understand German; he didn’t know about Pym. But he knew the steady lance corporal well enough to know he wouldn’t step aside and let Faust run away. To escape, he’d have to either kill Pym or give him the slip. Faust grimaced. If he shot Pym and then learned Best had lied — it would be Faust’s head on the chopping block, not Best’s—

  —and maybe that was the plan.

  Bugger it. He wasn’t going to shoot Pym, any more than he’d shoot Jennifer, and that was flat. But if he could get away—

  Making a final decision would be so much simpler if he knew he could trust Best. Or not.

  “Major Faust?” Best’s voice quivered. “We must hurry. Don’t you want to go home?”

  More than anything. But he hadn’t yet found an answer to Stoner’s accusation. He didn’t know if Oberst von Maacht had or hadn’t set the Gestapo to investigate him. And he didn’t know if the Waffen SS had figured out his role in Clarke’s raid.

  Frag, frag, frag. Around the ballroom, the moonlight glistened, an unbroken stream, across the brick floor in the vestibule where Jennifer hid. In the stillness, he almost imagined he heard her speaking, a low voice without words at the edge of his soul. Or was it his conscience? He’d promised not to attempt escape before dawn. But when offered a chance like this—

  He’d held his position for too long. Faust eased across the open stretch of floor and ducked behind the last desk in the line, the one farthest from Stoner’s office. He had to think.

  And then the floor-to-ceiling window behind him shattered. His thinking time was over.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  night

  Margeaux Hall

  She’d been a fool.

  Harriet, now, she’d have known what to do immediately. But then Harriet had always looked to the future, to aviation and movies, not to the poetic past. She’d not have hesitated to command modern technology to solve a problem.

  Faust and Best shouted at each other in the embattled ballroom. Jennifer ignored the harsh German syllables she didn’t understand. Crouching behind the desk in the vestibule, out of sight from the combat zone, she plugged a jack into the switchboard, lifted the receiver, and waited, her pulse thudding in her ears. Over the instrument, the burring ring seemed excruciatingly loud, but no answering ring came from the ballroom nor from upstairs. So even if she hadn’t gotten the proper line, at least she hadn’t gotten a perfectly wrong one, warning Best and old Peter of her plan. At worst she’d awaken Debbie Burbank at the mercantile and the entire village would hear of it.

  The voice that answered, though, was masculine and hesitant. “Wainwright residence.”

  She’d done it properly. A silly flush of delight surged through her, followed by a stronger pulse of hope. “Mr. Wainwright—”

  She got no further.

  “Miss Stoner, for pity’s sake, what’s going on?” Steven Wainwright’s voice rose an octave. “I can hear shooting—”

  Best’s voice shouted from the ballroom, quick breathless words in German, and after a moment Faust answered more slowly. Jennifer closed her other ear with a fingertip.

  “Mr. Wainwright, please listen. I can’t speak loudly.”

  His verbal flow paused. “I can’t hear you.”

  Oh, if only there was someone else. But no one was closer
than the gate and no telephone there, and she had no idea of the situation upstairs, if anyone was even there to pick up. Anyone alive. The advertising agency clerk with the wallflower personality, who’d barely nicked a target during rifle practice, represented her only hope. Granted, if she could get him close enough, she could grab his Browning and use it herself.

  “It’s Peter Owen. He’s a traitor.” She thought fast. It would take too long to tell the truth. “He and Eduard Best are trying to murder Major Faust before he can tell us anything about the invasion — Mr. Wainwright, can you hear me?” Her nervous hand refused to stay still. She pulled open the desk drawer beside her and rummaged inside. There must be something she could use as a weapon.

  “Yes.” His voice wavered. “Yes.” A deep breath shuddered over the line. “What can I do?”

  Logbooks in a hanging folder, a tin of cookies, one of Norris’ comic books, a flashlight, another. Rubbish, just rubbish. “Grab your rifle, load it, and run to the residential wing. Peter’s in the entryway, firing through the door. For pity’s sake, stop him!”

  “Yes.” Another deep breath. Jennifer gripped the open drawer, the sharp edge digging into her palm. She had to be patient. But they were running out of time. “Yes, all right. I’m coming.”

  The line went dead. She crawled from beneath the desk, cradled the receiver, and scrambled to her feet, racing to the doorway and peering around the doorjamb. Best yelled more German words from Stoner’s office. He sounded part desperate, part frightened, and utterly anxious. If she didn’t hate him so much, she might have pitied him.

  Faust didn’t answer, the silence stretching into long, painful seconds. From her vantage point, her back pressed against the brick wall beside the row of coat hooks, she tried to pierce the shadows of the desk area. He hid there somewhere, fighting for their lives, injured and brave and magnificent, and perhaps she should after all run upstairs for Carmichael’s Lee Enfield, or down to Reynolds at the gate—