Zealot

  Mira was trying to help one of the couriers, a woman named Reginka, sit up against the wall. Reginka was coughing up liquid, never a good sign, but it did indicate her body was still trying to fight the gas. MacLeod had transported hundreds like her from the trenches of the Somme. Even the ones who survived would never breathe properly again. Sometimes it was more of a mercy if the gas just killed them outright.

  The others seemed to have come through it, more or less. Coughing, swollen eyes, irritation, but if he could find a way to stop more poison gas from entering the bunker, they’d survive this attack. MacLeod started back down the corridor in search of Avram and Anielewicz, cautiously opening each door he encountered. Of the four rooms he checked, he found gas—and bodies—in the first two and quickly closed the doors again. Using his pocket knife, he slashed a big X in the wood of those doors so no one else would be endangered. The rooms weren’t airtight, but without a strong breeze behind it, it would take some time for enough gas to seep out through the doors to be dangerous.

  In the fifth room, he found Avram and the young commander in the middle of a group of fighters. The room was large, Issachar’s game room, and the table tennis and billiards tables were given over to the stricken. Avram saw him enter and moved to him.

  “How is it?” MacLeod asked.

  “Bad. Real bad. Old Izzy had air vents installed in probably a third of the rooms, plus the entrance. A real stickler for fresh air. Couple of canisters of whatever the hell that was back there was all it took. We’ve got bodies stacked up in the entrance tunnels and the stairs, they couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. No numbers yet.”

  “How’s Anielewicz?” MacLeod could see the young man was pale and coughing, but still seemed to have the reins of command firmly in hand as he directed the head count.

  “Completely amazed you would rescue him. I’m sure he half suspected you were the one who sold us out. Who knows, goy, you may win him over yet before the war ends.” Avram shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. “We should all live so long, right?”

  There was a commotion at the door to the game room. Issachar and a couple of his armed goons were trying to force their way into the room over the protests of some ZOB fighters.“Anielewicz!” Issachar bellowed from the doorway. With a resigned look, Anielewicz signaled the fighters to let them in.

  Avram pulled out his pistol. “Best watch your manners, Shmuel,” he said as he passed by.

  Issachar ignored him and went straight for Anielewicz, backing him up against a table, getting right in his face. “I got thirty of my people dead. Dead, Mordechai, do you hear me? Dead! I got another forty so sick they’re puking up their guts. What the hell was that? And what do you intend to do about it?”

  The young ZOB leader looked at the raging mobster calmly and said, “There’s nothing we can do about it, Shmuel. They got into your ventilation system. There’s no way to stop it.”

  “So you’re just going to sit here and do nothing and let them come and kill us all?” Issachar said, poking a meaty finger into Anielewicz’s chest. The young ZOB leader ignored it.

  “It wouldn’t be my first choice,” he said quietly, but there was an edge of steel running through his words. “But we’ll do what we have to do. Are you in or out?”

  “You’re crazy.” Issachar backed away from the young man.

  “You’re all crazy if you think I’m going to stay down here. I’d rather take my chances with the Germans.”

  Anielewicz shook his head sadly. “They’ll kill you, Shmuel. As soon as you step out that door. They don’t care how much money you have, they don’t care how many people you can intimidate. To them, you’re just a Jew. And soon you’ll be a dead Jew.”

  A river of sweat trickled down the pudgy man’s face, betraying his fear, but his voice was full of bravado. “We’ll take our chances.”

  Anielewicz signaled to his people, “Get him out of here.” Several fighters made a move toward Issachar, who held up his hands and walked out the door on his own, followed closely by his henchmen. As soon as the door closed behind them, Anielewicz sagged back against the table like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  “Mordechai? You all right?” Avram moved toward him, concerned.

  Anielewicz waved him off. “Sure, fine. Never better,” he said in a bitter voice. “Let’s get together everyone who can still move under their own power. Get them in here for a council in five minutes.” Several fighters hurried out to do his bidding.

  “What are you going to tell them?” MacLeod asked, as gently as he could.

  “God only knows.” He looked up at them with anguish in his eyes. “Who knows, maybe Issachar’s right. Maybe we should go out and take our chances in the street. One big shootout. I don’t know anymore.” Anielewicz’s voice was strained, his nerves to the breaking point. “God help me, I don’t know!” He struck at the table angrily, then sat down, turning his chair away from the others, unable to face their eyes. He clenched his fists and looked up to the ceiling waiting for answers that would never come. He sat unmoving while the others filed silently into the room, watching him, waiting for his wisdom.

  Finally, the commander whom MacLeod knew as Jurek stood up slowly with the help of a cane. His hair was blond and his eyes were blue and once he had looked like a Hollywood film star. Once, before one of his arms-dealing contacts on the Aryan side denounced him to the Gestapo and the sign of his covenant with God, his circumcision, denounced him as a Jew. The ZOB had managed to rescue him from a work camp outside of Warsaw just prior to the beginning of the Uprising, but not before the burns and scars of the Gestapo’s interrogation had been branded into his body forever. But he had never broken, never betrayed them, and to an organization full of heroes, he was more than a hero. They all waited intently for him to speak.

  “Mordechai,” Jurek said, “none of us will come out of this alive—we’ve known that since the beginning. Maybe it’s time to stop struggling for an extra day or an extra week or even an extra hour and accept it.” Slowly, painfully, he moved a few steps closer. “I think the question is not how do we try to save our lives, but how do we choose to end them.”

  Anielewicz turned around slowly, looking at Jurek with new eyes. “Arye, what are you saying?”

  “Winning or losing isn’t measured in whether we live or whether we die. We know we can’t save our lives—but we can save the honor of our people, the honor of mankind. We can show the world that the bastards didn’t break us, and they didn’t beat us. We can take winning out of their hands.”

  “Oh God, no,” MacLeod heard Avram whisper beside him as he echoed the words in his own heart. Didn’t they understand? While there was life, there was still hope. They needed to hang on, to fight for every precious second. They couldn’t just throw that away. But MacLeod also knew this wasn’t his decision to make. It wasn’t his battle, his life, his people at stake, and so he remained silent.

  Beside him, Avram was pale. His eyes were shadowed, and he could see all the way to the heights of Masada with those bottomless eyes. He looked almost lost, distracted by the voices of a thousand ghosts in his head. Then he stepped forward as if to challenge Jurek. “No! You don’t know what you’re saying. That’s not the answer. That’s never the answer.”

  “Tzaddik, don’t you understand?” Jurek said. “What we do here will be remembered forever—our deeds will be immortal, and no matter what the Germans do, they can’t take that away.”

  Avram turned to Anielewicz, pleading with him. “Mordechai, please, there has to be another way.”

  His young leader was as torn up inside as Avram, but he understood the wisdom of Jurek’s words. “What other answer is there, Tzaddik?” he said softly. “The ovens? The Gestapo? The gas? Don’t you see, this way we are the masters of our own destiny, not the slaves of the Germans. Surely you can understand that.”

  “Only too well.” Avram knew it was the answer. He knew their backs were to the wall, that there was no hope remaining for an
outcome that didn’t end in the death of everyone. But knowing it was logical couldn’t make it any easier to face. Especially not again. There was so much Avram wanted to say, couldn’t say, but he saw the look of determination in Anielewicz’s eyes and knew their destiny was sealed. “If this is what you want.”

  “But no one should be forced to do this against their will,” Anielewicz continued. “Anyone who wants to take their chances with the Germans is free to go. Tzaddik?”

  Avram shook his head. “I live and die with you, Mordechai. You know that.”

  Jurek spoke again. “But who pulls the trigger?” There was silence in the room.

  “I say we draw lots among the commanders.” Avram couldn’t believe the words were coming out of his mouth, but it had worked all those centuries ago. It would work now. He cast about the game room, looking for anything that could be used, and spied a deck of cards on a poker table. “Aces high,” he said, shuffling the deck. “Low card does the deed.”

  One by one, the unit commanders came forward to draw their card. Jurek drew the five of diamonds, Arieh Linder the seven. Anielewicz himself drew the queen of hearts. Then the others. Finally, only Avram remained. He took a deep breath and drew.

  The two of spades. He looked stricken, as if the foundation of the world had been kicked from under him.

  Mira touched his arm, “God will be with you, Tzaddik, I know He will.” She kissed him softly on the cheek, then took her place at Anielewicz’s side.

  Jurek moved painfully to Avram and embraced him. “This is a holy thing you do, Tzaddik, remember that. And in days to come, the world will know: we rose up for a helpless people and saved as much honor as we could. What more can we ask for?”

  Avram stood unmoving, eyes closed, gathering his thoughts and his courage. Then, coming to peace with himself, pulled his pistol from his belt. “I’m ready.”

  “Who will be the first?” Anielewicz asked the assembled. “Who will be the first to say damn the Nazis, we’re taking back our lives? We’re taking back the honor of the People of God?” There was a deadly stillness in the room, everyone afraid of the inevitable, no one rushing to be the first.

  After a long silence, MacLeod stepped forward. “I will.” If this was truly their wish, he would try to make it easier for them.

  Anielewicz looked at him with gratitude and a new respect. “Tzaddik was right. You are a hero, MacLeod. My apologies.”

  MacLeod wished he was truly making a sacrifice. He knew the guilt of this moment, of not being able to give his life for these people, would stay with him forever. “You’re the real hero, Mordechai. Me, I was just along for the ride.”

  “Go with God,” Anielewicz pronounced his benediction.

  MacLeod moved to Avram. He embraced Avram to him and whispered in his ear with great concern. “You cheated. I saw you palm that card. Why?”

  “No one should have to die with this on his head, MacLeod. No one.” Avram’s voice was tight.

  “Be strong,” MacLeod whispered, and stepped back. He closed his eyes and nodded for Avram to proceed. He heard the gun fire …

  Chapter Seventeen

  Warsaw: May 8, 1943

  Slowly, awareness came back to MacLeod. He knew nothing at first but the burning in his chest, the throbbing pain that was the center of his existence. He could not see or hear or even feel, but he knew the pain. As it began to subside, he became aware of the rest of his body—head, arms, legs—and he became aware of himself. He knew he was Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod.

  Suddenly, his body shuddered, and, with a choked gasp, air seared deep into his lungs. He was alive again. His eyes opened and hearing returned, and he instinctively started to move. Then he remembered the Ghetto, the Nazis, the suicide pact, it all flooded back. He feigned death once more, looking around the room as best he could through eyes mostly closed.

  There were Nazis no more than ten feet away from him. Gas masks hung at their belts, but the air was clear of their noxious gas. All around MacLeod, the floor was awash in a tide of blood that pooled around the contorted bodies of his fallen comrades. He stilled his breathing as best he could, realizing how lucky he was the Germans hadn’t noticed his first gasp for life. There were three of them in the room, walking through the blood to search the bodies of the Jews for weapons and valuables, kicking them to ensure they were dead. Out in the hallway and in the rooms beyond, he could hear others, laughing and joking in German.

  “Feige Juden,” one soldier remarked to the other two in the room as he cut off a finger from the cold hand of Arieh Linder and pried his wedding ring free. “Cowardly Jews, not even a proper fight,” the Nazi groused.

  As he lay on the floor amid the other bodies, using the discipline and skills he’d once learned in the East to try to keep his breathing to a minimum, MacLeod realized he couldn’t sense Avram. Either he was gone from the room or had not yet come back to life. From his position, he couldn’t make out the identities of most of the victims in the room. Avram could be any one of them.

  Then he felt it. Very weak, but getting stronger. Coming from across the room. Coming from just beyond where the Nazis were looting the bodies of his friends. MacLeod knew that at any moment Avram would breathe the gasp of life, that there was no way to stop it, no way to control it. And the Germans would be right on top of him when he did.

  A distraction. He needed a distraction. Cautiously, he lifted his head, looked around. The Germans had their backs to MacLeod as they busied themselves collecting their petty spoils of war. MacLeod quickly searched his pockets. The bastards had taken his knife and his watch, but he’d been lying on his lighter. He pulled it out and, checking to make sure the Germans were still otherwise engaged, rolled to his side and threw it as hard as he could into the hallway, where it bounced off the far wall and clattered to the floor.

  MacLeod dropped back to the ground and watched the startled Germans hurry toward the door. Almost simultaneously, he thought he could hear the soft intake of breath that signaled that Avram was back among the living. Now if they could just play dead until the Germans left, they might still get out of this place.

  But it was hours before the Germans finally left the malina at Mila 18. Hours of lying among the ranks of the dead, wondering what went wrong, what he could have done differently, replaying in his head how he’d failed his people once again—Avram was merciless on himself.

  When they were finally truly alone, MacLeod got up and moved to Avram. Avram’s eyes were tightly closed. MacLeod touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Avram?”

  At his touch, Avram opened his eyes and MacLeod could see the tears he’d trapped inside. “Why does this keep happening?” Avram sat up. “Everyone dies, and I keep living on. Just me and the memories. Why, MacLeod? Why am I cursed?”

  MacLeod knelt beside him. “Maybe it’s because books and libraries don’t last forever?” He put an arm around Avram’s shoulders. “A very wise old Rebbe once told me that unless the truth is known, everything your people are, everything they were, will vanish into nothing, like the smoke from the camps. And then the Germans will have won. Maybe someone has to be left to remember them, to make sure it never happens again.”

  Avram laid his head against MacLeod’s shoulder and finally allowed the tears to flow. “I tried … Oh, God, I tried so hard. And it still happened …” MacLeod could hear the anguish of a thousand years in his voice. “I couldn’t stop it.”

  “It’s not your fault. You have to believe that.”

  “It’s like trying to save the beach from the sea, MacLeod. For every one I think I’ve helped, I lose ten thousand more.”

  “You’re not God, Avram,” MacLeod said gently. “You can’t save everyone. But if you’ve helped one person live one day, one minute longer, you’ve won. Look at how you saved Miriam.”

  “Yeah, and she’s still dead,” Avram said bitterly.

  “But you gave her three weeks of life that she wouldn’t have had. Remember what you told me? It’s
not a curse, Avram. It’s a mitzvah.”

  Avram smiled a bit. “Oh, Lord, what have I done? You’re starting to sound like a Jew, MacLeod.” Avram got to his feet, wiped his face with his arm. He took one last look around the room, at the friends and comrades who’d been his only family, who’d chosen the dignity of death by their own hands. “But you’re right. I’ll make sure no one ever forgets what happened here. As long as I live, another year or another two thousand, their sacrifice won’t be forgotten. And it will never have to happen again.”

  There were still German patrols stationed at the Mila Street entrances to the malina, but the enterprising smugglers who’d designed the bunker had allowed for a back door as well, which was, for the moment, unguarded. MacLeod and Avram emerged onto Zamenhofa, cautious, weaponless. It was still dark, which would provide them some protection as they made their way back to Mendik’s base. Still, to avoid the patrols, they kept to the alleyways and building courtyards.

  In a courtyard less than a block away from the carnage at Mila 18, another abomination waited. As they entered, MacLeod counted nearly fifty bodies, neatly arranged in patterns of five and six, then gunned down by firing squad. Fresh blood pooled between the paving stones like the water’s edge at ebb tide, and the stone floor was rust with a stain that would never come clean. Many of the groups were naked, ordered to strip before their execution, the clothes on their backs worth more to the Germans than their lives. Two piles of the dead closest to the entrance were still clothed and in disarray, their executioners grown tired or bored with their game or simply running out of time.

  “God in Heaven,” Avram whispered. He hadn’t thought he still had the capacity to be horrified but the cold, calculated nature of the massacre and the obvious pride the murderers had taken in their work sickened him. MacLeod waved one hand to shush him.