Pun’kin sat back. He had something new to think about. A conspicuous silence hung over the group. A couple guys darted glances Fishy’s way. The silence became awkward. At last Velvet said, “Fishy?”
Fishy shook his head. “Nah. I’m okay.”
Velvet was indignant. “Fishy, you sat there and listened to all of us!”
Fishy looked cornered. “That doesn’t mean I have to be part of your old women’s sewing circle!” He shot a desperate glance at Garret, but Garret had no idea what the glance meant.
Pun’kin sat forward, saintly relief on his face. “Tell us Fishy. You heard what I said. I feel a lot better now.”
“I can’t,” Fishy said shaking his head. “You guys would hate me.”
Ahhh… Garret thought.
“Fishy,” he said. “Do I know what you’re getting ready to tell them?”
After a trapped second, Fishy nodded.
Garret motioned to the circle. “Tell ‘em. They won’t hate you. I promise.”
“How do you already know and we don’t?” Velvet asked Garret.
“Because he walked in on me,” Fishy said haltingly. “Me and… Billy.”
Garret sat there and watched the meaning of that remark dawn on Velvet and Butterworth. Pun’kin wasn’t quite so quick.
“Well what were you and Billy doing?” Pun’kin asked.
Fishy gave him a flat stare. Pun’kin gave him a blank look in return.
“You were… drinkin’ alcohol on the ship?” Pun’kin guessed. “That ain’t so bad, Fishy. We all know you like to drink.”
Fishy sighed. “I didn’t join the Navy because I wanted to. My Dad forced me. He caught me with a guy.”
Velvet raised an eyebrow. “So he thought that sending you into the Navy where there were nothing but guys would change that?”
Fishy chuckled. “I never said Dad was the sharpest tool in the barn. He thought the Navy would toughen me up.”
Pun’kin was immediate and adamant. “You’re one of the toughest guys I know.”
“Thanks Pun’kin.”
“Did Theo know why you went?” Garret asked.
Fishy nodded. “I think it was the only time he got upset with Mother and Dad. He was furious with them for sending me away.”
“So he went after you,” Velvet said.
“And he didn’t tell anybody,” Butterworth said.
“Neither did Garret,” Fishy said gratefully. Then he sighed again. “So Theo had to lie to get in.”
So that’s why Fishy thought it was his fault when Theo died, Garret thought.
Velvet was faster than Garret with the verbalization of that thought. “Fishy, it sounds to me like what happened to you brother was your Dad’s fault.”
Fishy lifted his shoulders noncommittally. “Maybe.”
“Why would he send you away just for drinkin’?” Pun’kin asked.
Oh my God, Pun’kin! Garret thought. He intervened before it got any more embarrassing. “They were having sex, Pun’kin.”
Pun’kin stared at Fishy like a treed raccoon.
Fishy tensed. “See that’s why I didn’t tell you. It’s the way I am, I can’t help it. Pun’kin you can’t tell anybody!”
Garret put his head down and ground his palms into his cheeks. Homosexual activity was illegal. If anyone found out, Fishy could spend a long time in jail, and his reputation would be permanently ruined. Word of that sort of thing traveled fast.
“I won’t tell,” Pun’kin said. His face was pale, but he held up his right hand like he was swearing in before taking the witness stand. “I promise I won’t tell nobody. I don’t want you to go to jail.”
That comment raised awkwardness to an art form. Garret felt bad for Fishy, but considering the way Pun’kin had been raised, and the fact that they’d dropped it on him with no preparation, this was probably the best immediate response they could have hoped for.
Pun’kin stood, took a couple steps and patted Fishy on the shoulder. “You’re my friend.”
“Okaaay!” Velvet said with strained cheeriness. “This has been great! Let’s talk about what we’re going to do next.”
Everyone was more than happy to change the subject. From the corner of his eye, Garret inspected Fishy. Fishy was more relaxed than he’d been in a long time. Garret knew the feeling.
Butterworth discreetly moved around the circle and sat beside Fishy. Garret was just close enough to overhear when Butterworth leaned in and said with a devilish grin, “Mate, call me Barney one more time, and I’m calling you Knob Jockey for the rest of your life.”
Fishy gave him a narrow glare. It seemed they’d reached an understanding.
W
June 27th, 1914. The day before Vidovdan
Maxwell squatted below the window, with Otto crouched next to him so closely that he could feel the man’s breath on his neck. Across the doorway, Klaus and Gerhard crouched under the opposite window. It was so dark that Maxwell could hardly see them.
The pale skin of Klaus’s hand flashed dimly, once… twice… three times. Maxwell braced and a small explosion rocked the night, blasting the door between them into pieces. Maxwell felt a piece of shrapnel graze his leg, freeing a spurt of blood. They had hoped the stone facing was set deeply enough that it would shield them from the blast. It didn’t, but there wasn’t time to care. Maxwell was already leaping from the ground, throwing himself backwards and sideways through the low window, folding his right arm up in front of his face and neck to break the glass first, just as he had been trained so many years ago.
He drew both of his pistols as he passed through, aiming one to his left and one to his right. The men closest to the door were concussed by the blast. The others were fumbling their weapons, focused on the door, expecting someone to come through it.
Maxwell only had time to squeeze a couple of rounds before he hit the floor. The first round found its mark, killing a short man with a gut and a rifle with a polished stock. Maxwell’s second shot, the one to the left, was intended to kill the man coming down the hall. Maxwell missed. He hadn’t missed in years. He hit the floor and squeezed off one, no, two more rounds before the man’s head snapped back and he folded.
Otto had followed him through and seemed to have made it to the stairs before the broken glass hit the floor. Otto blew one man off of the stairs, leaped up onto the railing, went over it and up out of sight. Two more men came flying down the stairs an instant later. One of them hit face first at the bottom. His neck crunched at an odd angle. The other landed atop the dead man. He survived, but only for a few seconds. Gerhard was on him with his knives. Maxwell knew little about Gerhard’s knives, other than that they weren’t military weapons, but old butcher knives that had once belonged to someone Gerhard cared a great deal about.
Klaus killed a man to the right of the door and then moved towards the next room. Maxwell rolled to his feet and slipped up behind Klaus. Back to back, they pivoted into the next room, each of them pointing their weapons down opposite walls. Maxwell was faced with a short wall which dead ended in an unoccupied corner, so he pivoted ninety degrees and stepped away from Klaus. There was a louvered screen jutting out from the wall, separating Maxwell from the rest of the room.
He moved quickly around the screen, guns leading. There was nothing behind it but a small tea table and chairs. Klaus had made it to the far end of the room and was waiting for Maxwell. Maxwell joined him, keeping well clear of the sight lines of the doorway. Elsewhere in the house, all had fallen silent. Otto and Gerhard were undoubtedly making their way around the opposite direction.
Klaus nodded to Maxwell, then peered around the facing momentarily. He made a small motion of fingers walking upward at an angle.
Maxwell wasn’t familiar with German military hand signals, but in this case, “stairs” seemed clear enough. Maxwell made a tossing motion. Klaus took a long-handled grenade off his belt, pulled the pin and tossed it around the facing. The
re was a shout of alarm, then an explosion. Klaus and Maxwell rounded the facing. The stairs were wrecked, as were the legs of the two men who had been standing on them. They were grasping weakly for their weapons.
Klaus shot one of them in the face, Maxwell shot the other. They picked their way as dexterously as possible up the ruined staircase and to the upper story. Off the landing, Maxwell and Klaus fanned out into the first room. Judging by its size, it occupied half of the upper floor. Gerhard and Otto should be in the opposite room by now.
The room in which Maxwell stood had sleeping mats rolled out on the floor, and a table in the middle covered with battered tins, ammunition, and the reeking remnants of some sort of fishy meal.
There was no one else there. Maxwell frowned. They had so far killed seven men, and there were three sleeping bags and four mats with blankets on the floor. That didn’t make sense. There should have been someone else.
Maxwell slowly lowered his pistols. Klaus had sidled up to the doorway into the final room. He rounded the facing at the same time Gerhard rounded it coming the other way. In a flash, Gerhard had one of his blades at Klaus’s throat.
“Too slow,” Gerhard said in German, grinning.
“’Too slow’ is how your mother fucks,” Klaus said conversationally, holstering his pistol.
Maxwell pushed past them and Otto, who was bent over in the other room, sifting through ammo boxes and a small rack of guns. Maxwell trotted back down the opposite stairs. At the bottom, he grabbed the first man Gerhard had killed and rolled him over. Gerhard had sliced the man’s throat in a perfectly straight line, right across his Adam’s apple. He’d also run the man through the heart, one blade, driven perfectly between his ribs into the center of the organ. In another life, with a very different upbringing, Gerhard could have been a surgeon.
Maxwell quickly searched the dead man, gaining nothing for his trouble other than a handful of coins, a small Serbian Orthodox cross, and a pocket-sized book by an Italian Free-Thinker. Maxwell tossed the body aside and grabbed the other dead man beneath him.
Klaus and Otto were standing behind him on the steps. “What are you expecting to find, Captain?” Klaus asked him in German.
“An explanation,” Maxwell said shortly. “All of our intelligence said this location was the hub of their command structure, but this is nothing.” He gestured around at the house, then ripped the man’s jacket open and searched the interior pockets. “We were misled, intentionally, but they didn’t try to trap us. So that means there’s an explanation around here somewhere. Start searching.”
Klaus, Gerhard, and Otto, who was now armed to the teeth, stepped down off the stairs and fanned out.
“How are you certain that we were misled?” Klaus asked carefully as he began searching the short man Maxwell had shot first.
Maxwell tossed aside the second man but only said, “If you’re searching bodies, collect everything they have and let me look at it. The smallest detail might be the one I’m looking for.”
But it didn’t turn out to be that difficult. “Herr Maxwell,” Gerhard said. “Come.”
Maxwell turned. Gerhard was standing over Otto, who was kneeling in the hallway next to the second man Maxwell had shot. The one it had taken him three shots to bring down. As Maxwell knelt next to Otto, he saw why it had taken so many shots. Nothing was harder than killing a child. His aim always betrayed him when he had to do it.
The dead Serbian boy on the floor was no more than sixteen. He had a homely, but gentle face. In a white uniform and a blue neckerchief, he could have been one of Maxwell’s own sailors.
Maxwell squatted for a long moment. Too long, but it was getting harder and harder to maintain no expression in situations like this. Maxwell forced himself to reach out and close the boy’s eyes. They were brown. They reminded him of Emery’s eyes, even though they were green, like his mother’s.
Otto was holding the contents of the boy’s pockets on his outstretched palms. There was a washed-out, sepia tone photo of a girl standing next to her dour looking father and mother. They wore straight, plain traditional dress. There was also a brochure that said “Visit Sarajevo.” It was printed in garish color, and fronted with a blurry image of a group of priests and knights walking down a cobblestone street. They were holding religious banners.
Gerhard didn’t seem to be interested in either of those items. He picked a slip of paper off of Otto’s palm and handed it to Maxwell. Maxwell took it. It read:
By entering into this brotherhood, I swear by the sun that shines upon me, and by the earth from whose bosom I am fed, I swear before God and by the blood of my fathers, I swear upon my honor and upon my life, that from this moment until my death, I shall unswervingly serve the charge of this brotherhood, and I shall be vigilant and ready each moment to make any sacrifice that is required of me. Furthermore, I swear by God, my honor, and upon my life, that I shall carry out all commands that are given to me, and that I shall take the secrets of this brotherhood to my grave. May God and my brothers here be my judges if I should fail.
“No member of the Black Hand would carry a copy of the oath in his pocket,” Gerhard said, peering over his shoulder.
Maxwell nodded. Otto wasn’t interested in the slip of paper. He handed Maxwell the brochure. Maxwell didn’t open it, but only stared at its cover. Otto was right.
“It’s an invitation,” Maxwell said grimly, studying the image of the knights and banners.
Klaus frowned. “The celebration of St. Vitus Day is immense,” he said in German, gesturing to the parade shown on the cover. “The boys you sent will be overwhelmed.”
Maxwell ignored the remark. He began to open the brochure, but before he could unfold it completely, a train ticket fell out. It was one way. A ticket from the nearest train station to Sarajevo.
“He was going there tomorrow,” Gerhard said. “He was our assassin, then?”
Maxwell shook his head. “No. This ticket wasn’t for him. It’s for me.”
Klaus crossed his arms. “That is quite a leap of logic, Captain.”
Maxwell stood and pocketed the ticket. He faced his three companions. “You men have done your duty above and beyond. You have my thanks and the thanks of the United States government.”
Klaus wasn’t given to emotional outbursts of any kind, but he raised his eyebrows. For him, that was practically a scream of surprise. “Captain Maxwell, I do not know what you are planning… I never know what you are planning, but we are with you to see this through.”
“And you have done that,” Maxwell said.
Klaus absorbed that, let his eyebrows settle to normal height, then said, “As you wish, Captain Maxwell.”
Gerhard shook Maxwell’s hand and said, “I have enjoyed this, Herr Maxwell.”
Otto stepped up to Maxwell and took hold of his shoulder. Maxwell embraced him, briefly and solidly. They released each other, and Maxwell headed for the door.
“We must do this again, some time!” Gerhard called after him.
Maxwell said nothing as he stepped out the door, but he knew that Gerhard would never forgive him for ordering them to leave Hans behind. Dragging a one-legged man around would have slowed them too much. Maxwell would have missed his opportunity.
Gerhard would never see it that way, which mean that if Gerhard ever saw Maxwell again outside of the chain of command, Gerhard would kill him. Maxwell collected his pack from beneath the bush by the gate, then he climbed the gate, dropped to the ground on the other side, and walked quickly away into the night. He had a train to catch.
W
“So, what are we going to do when we get to Sarajevo?” Butterworth asked over his shoulder.
They were in the back of a wagon again. All except Butterworth, who was driving. This time they’d actually bought the wagon. They’d also returned the shovels and compensated the husband and wife generously for the clothing.
They’d had to buy a second horse to pull the w
agon, but they had plenty of money. The currency was Austrian “Coronas,” but judging by what they’d been able to purchase so far, they had far more money than they were due for their pay. Once Pun’kin got started, it seemed he had sticky fingers. “I thought we might need it!” He’d insisted defensively. So now they were on their way to Sarajevo, via Lieutenant Bartram’s map, which Pun’kin had also filched. Garret grinned wider every time Pun’kin produced something else he’d pinched. Garret didn’t know why, but watching Pun’kin steal shit was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen.
“We’re gonna find the Black Hand and stop ‘em!” Pun’kin replied to Butterworth.
Fishy rolled his eyes. “I don’t think they’ll put a sign out front, Pun’kin.”
Velvet said, “He has a good point. We don’t know how to find the Black Hand, or what they’re planning, so we don’t even know what we’re trying to stop. Only Bartram would have known that.”
Fishy drew a long-suffering breath. “I tried to tell you guys this wasn’t a good idea, but nobody wanted to hear it.”
“Burl wanted us to go,” Pun’kin said stubbornly, now that he finally understood. “So we’re goin’.”
“I can see that,” Fishy said with annoyance. “I just don’t think it would have hurt to think this through.”
“Well mate,” Butterworth said. “We have plenty o’ miles to think it through now.”
“Fine, fine,” Fishy waved a hand. “You know Burl meant as much to me as the rest of you—”
Pun’kin narrowed his eyes suspiciously at that, but Fishy didn’t see him do it.
“But what are we going to do?” Fishy finished. “Do any of you guys know how big Sarajevo is?”
Garret hadn’t thought of that. Apparently neither had Pun’kin.
“I’m from a small town,” Garret said.
“How small?” Fishy asked.
Garret shrugged. “Not that small I guess. I think there’s about eighty people. I’m mean there are now. Since the monster.”
With upturned nose, Velvet flicked away a grasshopper which had landed on his shoulder. “Sarajevo’s got a lot more than that.”
Ironclad Page 65
