Deal with the Devil

by J. Gunnar Grey

  At the end of the row of desks, the floor-to-ceiling window convulsed. Glass shattered. The swags billowed, roiled, tumbled in a graceful slow-motion flutter of dark material, falling entwined with a thousand tinkling shards to the floor. Peter Owen stood framed in the sudden wash of moonlight, stepping back from the falling glass with the rifle rising to his shoulder. He giggled as the curtain rod clattered on the hardwood floor, through the last of the falling shards.

  And she’d sent Wainwright to the residential wing.

  No time to run upstairs now. Jennifer ran to the desk, yanked open the drawer, and snatched her chosen weapon. As the clouds swept the moonlight from the vestibule, she ran out into the night.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  night

  Margeaux Hall

  Faust dived for cover that didn’t exist. The glass shards were still falling, raining down atop the spreading curtains and the hardwood floor. A rush of moonlight and fresh air swept into his dark corner of the ballroom, carrying the gardener’s shrill giggle with it. The desks wouldn’t stop a bullet, he’d seen the proof, but they were all he had, and he scrambled behind one as the rifle cracked. At this range—

  The whanging hit ahead of him, the bullet zinging past as he’d described for Norris long days ago. The gardener had lead the shot and overestimated Faust’s speed; it wouldn’t likely happen again. Faust tucked his feet beneath him. This time he was in the shadow drawing Best’s fire, and nothing shielded his hiding spot from Stoner’s office door.

  Pym’s voice shouted. Sudden footsteps pounded on the hardwood floor. Faust risked a glance. Pym galloped from the eastern stairwell through the swath of moonlight toward the sitting area, his rifle clutched across his chest, screaming a wordless, ancient battle cry.

  It was the best possible distraction and flawlessly timed. Faust straightened, the shotgun braced against his hip. The gardener stood framed in the shattered window, traced with silver moonlight, the bolt open on his rifle. He glanced up, the grin sliding from his face, jaw slacking.

  No time to aim. Faust fired. Just as he did, the gardener whipped aside. Not a clean shot, then, but hopefully he at least sprayed his target and gave the sod something to consider.

  Faust raced away from the window, toward the vestibule and Stoner’s office. Tense spots tingled between his shoulder blades and on his chest, as if targets were painted there, and pain sliced through his arm with each step. Best fired, the revolver’s flat crack overshadowed by the harsh metallic whiplash of Pym’s Lee Enfield, and another bullet zinged past. Surely the gardener had reloaded by now. Faust set his feet on the polished wood. His boots skidded, stopping his legs as his body’s momentum carried him forward. He twisted in mid-air — frag it, this was going to seriously hurt — landing on his right side, his arm beneath him.

  Agony exploded, white-hot and ferocious. But he was ready and pushed through it, forcing his body into a tangled roll that carried him beyond the middle desk in the line. Behind him, the gardener fired again. Metal screamed overhead.

  Again the desk only covered him from the gardener’s view; his back remained vulnerable to the office doorway and with the broken window, the amount of moonlight in the ballroom had doubled. Best didn’t have to expose more than his hand and the revolver to try the shot. Pym’s position, somewhere in the chairs and sofas of the sitting area, wasn’t much help. And not likely they’d get away with a distraction again.

  Maybe he should have remained near the window and traded shots with the gardener. At close range, he might have survived the rifle while the shotgun would finish anyone. As it was, he may as well have stayed in the guardroom cell and awaited Stoner’s firing squad.

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  night

  Margeaux Hall

  If she ran straight out, screaming for Wainwright, she wouldn’t survive the stupidity. But that magnificent man had shown her how to hide in the nap of the hill, and once out the door, Jennifer scrambled down the slope toward the gate. Odd, the lawn seemed rougher than in daylight, more likely to trip her feet. But she didn’t slow her pace; if she broke her neck tumbling downhill, well, when her lifeless body hit the gate, Reynolds might figure out something was wrong. Surely the shooting should have attracted somebody’s attention.

  Reynolds. The squad. Jennifer paused and glanced back. She’d crossed a third of the lawn. From this angle, the dim glow of Stoner’s desk lamp lit the shattered window from within, silhouetting old Peter’s wiry frame but not illuminating his face nor clothing. He was just an anonymous man firing a rifle through the window. The squad had to be watching. They simply couldn’t understand what was happening.

  Like good soldiers, they awaited orders. And the orders would have to be hers.

  She crouched in the lawn, shielding the flashlight with her body and aiming it downhill, toward the distant black spikes of the gate. No one stood in sight. But Reynolds had to be there, standing his lonely sentry duty, and probably the others huddled in the wall’s shelter, too. Her fingers fumbled in the darkness, feeling for the button. Behind her, old Peter’s voice drifted on the moonlight, muttering his incomprehensible Welsh. Finally she found the button, switched it on, paused, then switched it off.

  She waited long seconds. But nothing moved in the moonlight.

  Blast it. Now was not the time to learn that these kids, despite their training and Lee Enfields, were truly cowards. She flipped on the flashlight again, fingers trembling on the button. More firing erupted from the ballroom, startlingly loud on the night air. She jumped, sending the cone of light scrambling across the lawn toward the residential wing, before she steadied its aim toward the gate. Off. On. Off.

  Something moved at the foot of the hill. A distant silhouette separated itself from the black line of the mortared stone wall, another, a third, all taking hesitant steps toward her. She had to hurry them. She repeated the signal, faster and faster, and her heart leaped as they sped up the slope toward her. Now she had a real weapon to her hand.

  Across the lawn near the main entry, another man hesitated, black and featureless in the night. He cradled another rifle across his chest. It could only be Wainwright. She flashed the light in his direction, on, off, on, off. He hesitated for another long moment, then galloped toward her, clutching the rifle before him.

  She glanced toward the Hall. Her breath caught. Old Peter eased away from the window’s glow, into the camouflaging shadows. He peered about the lawn, examining the sloping hillside behind him. His sweeping glance touched on the three soldiers scrambling up the slope, still distant and not yet a threat; he looked past her without a pause, as if he didn’t see her, and his head didn’t turn toward the residential wing, where Wainwright was comfortingly closer. She held her breath as Peter hung on his heel. Then another round of gunfire erupted within the Hall, the deep heady boom of the Lee Enfield followed by the sharp crack of the Colt revolver, and Peter swung back to the window. He stepped closer and raised the rifle to his shoulder.

  Her heart stopped.

  Jennifer flipped on the flash and spotlighted the grizzled head from behind.

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  night

  Margeaux Hall

  He’d found his last possible cover and it wouldn’t hold for long. Faust slithered across the hardwood floor into the kneehole of the desk closest to Stoner’s office, tucking his knees in like a pretzel. His pulse pounded, his arm and head pounded harder, and his breathing rasped as if he’d never draw oxygen again. The smothering, choking cloud of cordite caught in his throat. Sweat soaked him beneath his uniform, as if he’d been dipped in a bath. It was crazy, surviving Erhard’s practical joke and Stoner’s ruthless assault, only to die at the hands of a scheming professor and a gardener. But he had nothing left to hide in but the shadows.

  It was only a matter of time. Faust gritted his teeth. He had no intention of dying alone. One of those two would go with him. He’d at least give Pym an even chance. The lance corporal had proven his mettle, tr
ading fire with Best and keeping him bottled up in Stoner’s office. He could be trusted to finish the job. And while Faust loathed Best with all his heart, it was the fragging gardener he wanted.

  Faust peered over his shoulder. Behind the shattered window, the gardener had stepped back. Although the moonlight had dimmed, making details indiscernible, he seemed to be looking down the hillside toward the gate. But if Reynolds and the rest of the squad hadn’t interfered by now, they’d not likely suddenly find courage. With Stoner, Bruckmann, and Tanyon down, and with Pym cut off, they drifted without a leader. No, he was alone.

  At least Jennifer had kept her head down and hadn’t died first. Perhaps she’d learned caution and snuck away, through the postern gate and out of this madness. If so, she might yet survive.

  From the sitting area, Pym’s Lee Enfield thundered, followed a second later by the sharper crack of the revolver. Somewhere in the darkness around Faust, a bullet scored metal, not close. The gardener stepped back to the window. The dim glow of the desk lamp flashed from his bared teeth. He raised the rifle to his shoulder.

  It was time. Faust’s breathing steadied. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad. He wasn’t certain he believed in Brother Harmonious’ heaven, nor could he chant a Hail Mary. But there had to be some payoff for all the hours he’d spent on his knees as a child. He gathered his feet beneath him, ready for his final charge.

  Before he could break cover, a circle of light haloed the gardener’s head from behind. It looked like a spotlight, bathing an actor on a darkened stage. The gardener whipped around. His gaze swept the slope and halted, facing into the little cone of light — a flashlight? For pity’s sake — and then he aligned the rifle back along the beam.

  Faust’s adrenaline surged. The ballroom seemed to fade about him and time again slowed to a trickle. A flashlight. There could be only one person holding the ruddy thing. And she was about to pay the price for her fearlessness.

  He scrambled from beneath the desk. His boot clunked against the nearby chair and it spun away. He stumbled, staggered, fell to his knees with a crash, lost his balance and floundered on his left side as panic gripped him. The revolver cracked, cracked again, bullets whining nearby, and Pym’s Lee Enfield boomed.

  More rifles fired outside, a harsh report like a second Lee Enfield followed a moment later by another, closer one. The gardener ducked. Then he ran, sudden pounding footsteps diminishing in the night. Outside, the deep-throated rifles boomed again. The cone of light vanished.

  So much for his satisfying vengeance. Rage flared through Faust, white-hot then suddenly cold and still. The ballroom seemed to tumble about him, as if realigning reality. Then the topsy-turvy world righted itself and he understood his mistake. He didn’t need the gardener. The score he needed to settle was older and uglier.

  Faust rolled from beneath the desk. He jumped to his feet, in plain view, tucked the shotgun into his shoulder, and aligned the sights.

  Best curved about the doorjamb, starting to aim the revolver toward the sitting area. He froze. In the desk lamp’s glow, the rippling of his throat and the widening of his eyes seemed highlighted, clear and unmistakable.

  Outside, the rifles fell silent. A voice, young and frightened, started speaking, quickly hushed by a woman’s firm command. The silence stretched, painfully thin, as Faust stared down the shotgun’s steady barrel into the eyes of his target. Then in the distance, a cricket sang, its inhuman, mechanical voice trilling in the moonlight and drilling into Faust’s soul. Suddenly he was frightened, too. He’d done everything else wrong, screwed up everything else in his life. If that plane actually existed—

  Best’s chin lifted, as if he sensed Faust’s dilemma. “You do not wish to go home?”

  —if it wasn’t a figment of Best’s imagination—

  “We must hurry or it will leave without us.”

  —or an outright lie—

  “Put down the revolver.” His voice sounded harsh, rasping from a throat too dry to speak, as inhuman as the cricket.

  Best’s stare solidified, like ice. “When you lower the shotgun.”

  Understanding flared, haloed as if by a symbolic flashlight. There it was, the answer to Clarke’s question. Why does Germany need two armies?

  But Clarke hadn’t asked that question any more precisely than his first one. Germany didn’t need two armies. The Nazis needed their own army, to maintain their standoff against the Wehrmacht. Any lowering of weapons on either side gave away the advantage.

  Only trouble was, nobody had warned the German Army they were in a standoff. They were being blindsided.

  Which meant he couldn’t trust the Nazis.

  Which meant he couldn’t trust Best.

  Which his soul had already known, which was why he’d grabbed Jennifer’s shotgun to protect the English against another German whom he should have trusted.

  As Wyatt said, The friendly foe, with his double face, Say he is gentle and courteous.

  Along the aligned sights of the shotgun, Best swallowed again. “There will be room for both of us.”

  Faust pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  dawn, Friday, 30 August 1940

  Margeaux Hall

  Faust paused in the infirmary doorway. Dr. Harris stood at the counter, washing his hands. The runoff water swirled pink into the white ceramic basin, and red stains smeared to rust across the front of his smock. His grey suit seemed rumpled, as if he’d slept in it, and the bags beneath his bloodshot eyes would have held all the supplies in the infirmary. He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Through there.” Dr. Harris nodded toward the inner door. He paused and dropped his voice to a murmur. “I know you must speak with him. But try to remember what you did for him yesterday, and please be brief.”

  So much had happened since Stoner’s collapse, it seemed like forever. “I’ll try.”

  The back ward contained six beds aligned beneath open casement windows. Two of the beds were rumpled but empty, Tanyon and Glover gone in the first ambulance. The linens of one bed were smeared with shades of rust, bold finger-painting on an untidy canvas. On the other bed, the stains were on the pillow. Closest to the door, Carmichael lay still, a pristine bandage wrapped about his head. His eyes didn’t quite focus, but he smiled as Faust touched his shin in passing.

  In the last bed, Stoner was propped up on pillows, several typed sheets of paper on the bedsheet draped over his knees. Grave and gentle, he watched Faust approach with his usual clarity, and he gestured to the wooden chair beside the bed with a hand weak but steady.

  “I can’t believe Dr. Harris is letting you work.” Faust eased into the chair; moving fast hurt much worse than moving slowly.

  Stoner’s eyebrows quirked. “I didn’t ask permission.” His voice sounded thin, like that of an old and tired man, but didn’t quaver. When he gripped and gently shook Faust’s forearm, strength remained within his gnarled fingers. “My dear Major Faust, thank you so much for protecting my granddaughter.”

  Not Herr Major. Faust couldn’t prevent a wince. His career was over. The German Army, rightly or wrongly, would never trust him again. And he couldn’t return to Germany until the Nazis were defeated and removed from power; once they realized their star triple agent had quit reporting, they’d want to know why.

  The last thing he’d wanted to do last night was touch Best’s corpse. The shotgun pattern had sprayed his chest, removing chunks of it, and what remained reminded him nauseatingly of the murdered girls’ photos. But it had been his execution and his responsibility, and he’d forced himself to start the search with the shredded pockets on the shredded chest.

  In one front pants pocket, he’d found a keyring; upstairs in Best’s quarters, they’d found a book of Schiller’s poems with a hollow spot carved into its pages. When Pym told him Best only read German writers, the same books over and over, it made sense. The old gardener, Peter Owen, had found Bruckmann’s keys the night of Faust’s last escape, made copi
es, and smuggled them to Best in the book, proving they’d been communicating in that manner for some time. Best had called Owen a nationalist, a Welshman who wanted to see Wales separated from the English union and independent, like Eire. He’d made a deal with the devil to fight for it. Faust wasn’t willing to do the same.

  He shifted on the chair. “Mr. Stoner, don’t take this the wrong way—”

  Stoner’s eyebrows curved into twin question marks.

  “—but next time there’s trouble, I’m going to stand behind that woman, not in front of her. She’s ferocious.”

  Stoner smiled. “She’ll do.” He shifted on the pillows, and his gaze dropped to the papers in his lap. “I understand I also owe you gratitude for saving my own life. You know, I thought I’d prepared myself for the inevitable. I found, when the time came, I wasn’t at all ready to die.” He squeezed Faust’s forearm then let go. “Thank you.”

  There was only one thing he could say, of course. “I’m glad I could help.”

  The casement windows gave a clear view through the apple trees to Woodrow. Boards had been nailed across Jennifer’s shattered bedroom window, but Major Kettering had promised to repair it properly.

  “I’d manufactured so many layers of deceit to keep you guessing.” Stoner glanced up. The layers were gone, swept away like their desktop battlefield, and the old man’s eyes softened to a gentle summer-sky blue. “Jennifer was right, you know. I nearly destroyed myself while you maintained your humanity to the end.”

  The honesty in their mutual gaze, Faust knew, would never be breached again. “She usually is.”