"Oh, but you will. Once we begin on you, you will."
Amelie folded her arms as she stared at Pryce. "Obersturmbannfuhrer, I do not think the American dog believes you. I think he does not believe we have the will power to do as you say and break him."
Kramer looked at her sideways, sensing that the woman was cooking up something particularly and deliciously evil. "You, of course, may be right, my dear. What do you suggest?"
Amelie grabbed the back of her brother's chair and tipped him backwards, dragging him across the platform to its very edge. She rocked the chair with one hand, holding it precariously over the precipice.
"What are you doing?" Louis cried. "Pull me back! Amelie, please!"
"I have given myself over completely to der Fuhrer, Agent Omega," Amelie said. "I would sacrifice anything and everything for the cause. So tell me, if this is what I will do to my own blood, what hope is there for you?" Amelie looked at her brother and said, "Au revoir, Louis."
With that, she lifted her foot and kicked Louis in the center of his chest, sending both him and the chair hurtling backwards over the platform. Louis' cries of terror echoed throughout the building, as he fell toward the concrete floor. The cries stopped at the sound of his chair smashing to pieces far below, and Victor Kramer's eyes widened in surprise. He looked at Amelie and said, "Mein gott, you are enthusiastic."
Kramer cupped his hand around Amelie's round buttocks and said, "I hope you save some of that enthusiasm for me, ja?"
Amelie looked into the Nazi's eyes and said, "I'm ready whenever you are, Obersturmbannfuhrer."
Kramer turned to look at where Pryce was sitting, saying, "You hear that, Omega?" as he turned. He choked on his words as he saw the empty chair and loose bonds dangling from its arms and legs. Kramer heard footsteps slapping the concrete below and turned to see the naked bodies of both Agent Omega and Louis Brevot running across the floor.
"Grab them!" Kramer roared.
Just as quickly as the SS soldiers raised their rifles to fire, Pryce wrapped his arms around Louis Brevot and both men vanished.
"Where are they? Where did they go?" Kramer said urgently. "Find them!" Louis Brevot's chair was smashed on the ground directly below him, draped in the scientist's discarded clothing. Pryce must have regained his powers just in time to escape and rescue the man, Kramer thought. He looked at Amelie and thought, in fact, he may have just been waiting for the right moment when I was distracted.
The sonderkommandos raced down the platform steps to get out of the building, barging through the crowd of scientific researchers and using their rifle butts to clear the way.
Amelie came to the Obersturmbannfuhrer's side and said, "I do not understand. How could he have recovered his powers so quickly?"
Kramer turned and snatched her by the throat, squeezing viciously. "Better yet, how is it that you, a superhuman who can supposedly see the future, did not know he would escape?"
Amelie grasped his hands and tried to pry them off. "I did not know, I swear to you," she wheezed.
Aleister Crowley stood in front of Kramer and said, "Obersturmbannfuhrer, please! Her powers are not always predictable. She has not been properly trained how to use them yet. Stop worrying over the girl and set your mind to the task at hand. Omega cannot teleport any great distance. He is surely looking for a vehicle. Let us block the roads and search the woods at once!"
"Very well," Kramer said, releasing his grip on Amelie. "But I promise you, der Fuhrer will hear of this, and he will not be pleased."
"As you wish, Obersturmbannfuhrer," Amelie said, rubbing her hands on her throat.
She followed Kramer and Crowley out of the building into the brilliant sunlight of Hillersleben, watching the sonderkommandos pile into all their various vehicles.
She saw two uniformed SS men waiting off to the side of the parking lot, both of them wearing dirty goggles, waiting for the line of vehicles in front of them to pass before they could join the chase.
Amelie called out to Obersturmbannfuhrer to wait for her as he got into the backseat of his personal car. She grabbed his knee as she sat down beside him and said, "Do not look so sad, my dear. You will find the American dog and my useless weakling of a brother. Der Fuhrer will be most gratified when you deliver his most hated enemy." She ran her hand up the inside of his thigh and said, "But not as much as I will."
Kramer leaned back in his seat, staring intently into the woods. He let her touch him but it would not change his mind about reporting her negligence. Perhaps if they found the prisoners in the woods he might see clear to avoid reporting the incident altogether. After all, why spoil such a colossal victory? There were cars zipping past them in every direction, and soon, Kramer began to feel more confident. "They cannot have gotten far," he said. "And there is no place in all of Germany that I cannot find them."
Amelie looked over as the Zundapp motorcycle pulled up beside her window. The driver had a long scar down his cheek that was covered mostly by the goggles. He looked down at her through the motorcycle's handlebars and she kept her eyes fixed on him, even as she said, "Who would dare to test a man as great as you, a man who wields the power of the Third Reich, Herr Kramer?"
She watched the motorcycle take off down the road, leaving a long cloud of dust in its wake. She hoped Omega understood the exchange of lives. She was sparing his in return for him saving her brother's. It was that simple. When they met again, and they would meet again, it would be as equals and then, the man called Omega would be at an end.
Chapter 5: Reasonable Suspicion
Detective Price held up his hand to stop Beckett from speaking any further. "Enough. That's all the crazy person time I have for one day."
The lines along either side of the older man's face wavered slightly as he stopped himself from saying anything further. He folded his hands in his lap and said, "Of course. Whatever you prefer. Thank you for your time."
Price looked around the room to see if any of the other detectives were paying attention. Some were huddled over their desks, working stacks of cases similar to his. Others were standing around the coffee machine telling stories about victims and cases and the various skells they dealt with at one point in their career or another. None of them paid him any attention. They were just glad he was the one talking to Beckett and not them, because a new face walking into the office meant new work, and if there was one thing a seasoned detective hated was new work. Price turned back to Beckett and leaned across his desk, getting close enough to whisper, "I don't know what your malfunction is, but if you think you can just come in here and waste my time with some damn fairy tale, you got another thing coming."
"That was not my intention at all, sir," Beckett said.
"Telling me about some guy that looks like me and has my scars, saying he got all shot up, what do you think, I'm stupid? You playing games with me cause you think it's funny? Trying to see how far you can wind me up?"
Beckett's voice was calm and clear when he said, "No. Not at all. I was just asking you're your help in finding this person."
"You're not describing a person," Price said. "You're describing some sort of make-believe superhero who can't be killed."
"Not true," Beckett said. "He can be killed. In fact, he is often killed, but when he dies, he somehow…wakes up. He wakes up with no memory of who he was before and gets sort of, what do the kids call it nowadays? Rebooted."
Their eyes met, searching each other for a long time, until Price finally said, "And he just happens to be named Sean Pryce?"
"No, not necessarily. He could be a million different names by now. But maybe, just maybe, that particular name, or a derivation of it, has some sort or resonance for him. Maybe it's something that was just floating around in his brain and he has no idea why."
Detective Price leaned back in his chair, trying to keep from exploding on the man. "You're either trying to mess with my head or you're a nut job. Somebody wrote some conspiracy story online about this Pryce or Scott or wha
tever person, and you believed it. Get yourself some help, old-timer. You need to be on some kind of medication."
Walter Beckett stood up from the chair and collected himself, saying, "Thank you again for your time, Detective Price."
"You should thank me for it," Price said. "And for not locking you up in a loony bin."
Beckett reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a business card and laid it flat on the desk. "If you change your mind, I have more I can share with you about this missing person. My hotel and cellphone are written on the back." He watched Price pick up the card and look at it, then said, "I filled it out ahead of time because I figured you were going to tell me to leave. Bis zum nächsten mal, Detektiv."
"Das ist mir egal," Price replied as an after-thought, waving his hand at the man and looking at the front of the business card. It said, Walter Beckett, Apiary Society Historical Accuracy Division. Price tossed the card onto his desk and turned in his chair to look out over the New York City skyline.
Crazy old coot.
He shook his head and got up to stretch his legs and see what was happening around the coffee machine. It was several minutes after he'd joined the rest of the cops and fell into talking and laughing with them that he realized Beckett had spoken to him in German and he'd responded easily, as if it were second-nature.
He stood in front of his bathroom mirror that night and took off his dress shirt and tie, leaning close to the glass to look at the circular scars covering his torso. He inspected the size and shape of each scar as well as their placement on his body. Aside from the one running down his cheek, there was one in the meat of his left shoulder, close enough to sever the artery connected to his heart. Another was directly over his lung. A third on the place above his liver. Fatal shots, any of them, if they were from bullets.
There were other scars as well that he'd noticed over the years and assumed they were from being buried in the wreckage of the Twin Towers. He undid his belt and took off his gun, dropping his pants to turn and inspect a strange, flat scar just above his right hip. He'd always thought it was from being stabbed by some sort of broken pylon or flying rebar in the collapse, but the doctors at the hospital had never stitched him there.
It looks like a knife wound. Or maybe…Jesus…maybe even a sword.
Price stepped out of his clothes and got into the shower, turning the water on as hot as he could stand. He got in and closed his eyes, letting the heat work into his muscles. I'm letting that old guy get into my head, he thought. I'm falling for whatever line of garbage Beckett was trying to sell me.
But it was more than that.
When Walter Beckett was telling you those stories, you could see everything in complete detail. Like a movie. Like a memory.
Price cut the water off and toweled himself dry. It was early in the evening but he climbed into bed, listening to the traffic and the yelling and the crazies on the street far below his apartment. It was New York City music and something he'd long since grown accustomed to, but for the first time in his life…no…for the first time in the life he could remember, it felt foreign and strange.
He'd dreamt of her before and he dreamt of her again. A woman with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair and large, doomed eyes. She watched him from a distance, always, careful to keep anyone from seeing.
In his dreams, he was always too far away from her to call out to her, to ask her why she was looking at him in that way. In this dream, he was standing at the mouth of an alleyway, looking down at a series of bodies. There were other detectives around him, and people from the Crime Scene Unit were snapping photographs, but instead of the modern digital cameras, they were using the old time wooden ones with enormous flashes that popped so brightly everyone had to close their eyes and turn away.
When he turned away, he saw her. She was standing at the end of the block, waiting to cross. There were a dozen uniformed soldiers surrounding her, keeping her from moving in any direction. The soldiers all wore stark black uniforms adorned with red armbands on their sleeves.
He knew her first name, but was too far away to shout it, and by the look of her, she did not want him to. She looked afraid the men around her would see and did her best to keep her head low. The light at the intersection changed and the Nazis began to march in lockstep, leading her away from him and crossing the street.
"Wait," he called out, realizing that she would leave and never return. That she was someone important who was about to vanish in the sea of dark uniforms. He drew in his breath and cried out, "Eva!"
The cordon of Nazi soldiers stopped marching and spun immediately to face him.
They were coming.
Price backed away slightly from the street, fearing the menacing looks etched across each of their faces. There was intolerable cruelty there. These were the kind of men who fed children to ovens and ripped teeth out of elderly women with pliers. Price knew this because he'd seen it. He wasn't sure when or how but it was buried deep in his being like a childhood memory.
He knew these men were killers and a disease infecting the people of his city and he would not stand for it. The wind rose, blowing through his hair and clothes and the sky darkened high overhead, as if the very elements were gathering around him in a swirling vortex of energy. He stopped backing up and stiffened his back, staring at the men as they advanced and said, "Well, well. It's been a while, boys."
The Nazis stopped abruptly as he spoke, and one of them whispered the name in terror, "Omega."
Price woke up gasping for air, trying to tear the bed sheets away from his body like they were the clasping hands of his enemies, like he was ripping them off and clubbing them with the severed limbs.
It's not possible.
He got up from the bed and walked to the nearest mirror, looking at the long scar running down his left cheek.
Who the hell am I?
He'd known it all those years ago when he was laid out in the hospital, looking down at all his strange scars. Chicken pox. That was what Mikey Mallory had said. He'd known it was bull then but he let it ride, thinking it was a more easily understandable explanation. Wanting it to be the real explanation, knowing that it wasn't.
And the woman in the dream. Her face haunted him like a ghost, weighing heavily on his soul like a heavy stone. She was no figment of his imagination, he knew that much. He knew she was no figment, and he knew her name was Eva.
He pulled Walter Beckett's business card out of his wallet and looked at the address on the opposite side. The hotel was only a few blocks away. He decided that maybe it wouldn't hurt to hear the rest of what the crazy old bastard had to say. Even if it was just for laughs.
The old man was sitting in the hotel's café, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. He looked up as Price walked through the front doors, smiled, then quickly looked back down at the article he'd been reading. There was no need to get all giddy, he told himself. Take it slow. Don't scare the boy.
Price pulled the chair out across from Beckett and said, "I have a question. Who is Eva?"
Beckett flinched slightly but tried to recover by looking down at his coffee and saying, "Boy, this is strong stuff. They don't make it like this back home."
Price reached across the table and put his hand on the man's arm, pushing it down so they could see each other face-to-face. "Who is Eva?"
Beckett put his coffee down and looked around at the other tables, making sure they were empty. "Are you sure you really want to know?"
Price sat back, "I'm sure I want to know, I'm just not sure I'll believe what you tell me. Maybe she's a woman from my past when I lived in New Jersey as a carpenter, or the captain of a boat I sailed on when I was fisherman in Maine, or any of the other bazillion possibilities that come along with forgetting your entire life before you were found almost dead in the middle of a national tragedy. Maybe I'm insane for even asking you any of this, because all you seem to tell me are bizarre stories about superheroes, but just for kicks, just for the sake of a few laughs,
I'll give you one more chance to tell me another whopper. Who is Eva?"
Walter Beckett folded his hands on the table and said, "What I'm going to tell you is the strangest thing we've discussed yet, Detective. If you had trouble believing me before, this will not make it any easier for you."
"Try me," Price said. "I'm a New York City detective, Walt. I hear strange stuff for a living."
Beckett nodded and began to speak. As Price listened to his words and the truth about the woman named Eva, he came to desperately wish he'd never asked.
Chapter 6: Operation: FuhrerDie!
Walter Wagner was a lawyer, not a priest, but it had fallen on him to conduct the marriage ceremony. He read the scripted rites to the couple standing in front of him and tried to remain smiling. Surely, no stranger pair had ever received such words. The woman was young and blonde, her eyes sparkling with wild beauty despite the darkness swirling within them. The man standing at her side was expressionless. This was all a formality for him and nothing Wagner had said appeared to remotely affect the man. Perhaps nothing did, any longer. Wagner turned to him and said, "Do you, Mein Fuhrer, take Miss Eva Braun to be your wife?"
Adolph Hitler nodded his head slightly. The woman touched his hand and he finally said, "I do."
There was a small, much too eager, burst of applause within the Fuhrerbunker's map room.
Hitler turned to his secretary and said, "Now that is finished, we will eat. Then you and I must speak in private."
At four o'clock that morning, Hitler summoned the command staff into his secretary's office and said, "You will sign these documents as witnesses to my last will and testament."
Joseph Goebbels looked down at the stacks of meticulously typed pages in confusion. "Mein Fuhrer, what is the meaning of this?"
Hitler pressed his hand against his stomach, trying to ease the boiling contents within. His hand shook involuntarily from palsy as he lifted his finger at Goebbels and said, "Sign."
Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever Page 7