Apex Predator

by S. M. Douglas

  “The instrument he’s playing is a cobza,” Ernie said. “These men are lăutari - Romani musicians. They are often hired for wedding celebrations. The first of their kind came from Wallachia during the late eighteenth century.”

  “Isn’t Wallachia—”

  “Yes Owen, its Vlad the Impaler’s homeland,” Ernie said.

  They watched the band dance by, the music diminishing in volume if not intensity as what appeared to be a Roma bride and groom followed along. The willowy bride’s cinnamon-gold skin glowed in the dimming light. She appeared incredibly young.

  “You sure this is a wedding?” Owen said.

  Ernie didn’t answer.

  “Maybe it’s a school play?” Owen mumbled.

  “Your friend is correct, Mr. Historian. It’s a Gypsy wedding.”

  The woman’s voice came from Owen’s left, speaking fluent American English but with a husky note that caught his ear. He didn’t bother questioning that the interloper knew his identity. Every local not living under a rock would have known by now the particulars of a team of roughly twenty foreign professors and graduate students. “Whatever, lady. That girl can’t be older than fifteen. The boy looks like he’s still in middle school.”

  “Middle school,” the woman laughed mockingly at his term for describing an age at which many of the Romani children had become adults in responsibilities if not name. “For someone interested in this region’s past you don’t seem to know much. Then again, you Americans have no real history. My village is older than your country, is it not?”

  Owen turned, his pupils widening in surprise. A perceptible wrinkling of the skin framed emerald eyes sparkling with life. A playful smile crossed her ruby red lips, exposing polished white teeth. Raven black hair cascaded down the woman’s shoulders, providing a stunning contrast to her alabaster white skin.

  Ernie looked over and sighed; taking in both the woman’s exquisite Slavic features as well as his friend’s Pavlovian reaction. In retrospect, Owen had been too young when he married. On the other hand, he had matured since his wife had left him. But now this… Ernie hoped to God the expression on Owen’s face came across as mere interest, and not the hungering look of a man eyeing this woman like she was a Five Guys hamburger.

  They introduced themselves. Tanya Alexeevna Volchitsa smiled in response, her eyes lingering on the young American. He had a curious air about him, his soft brown eyes brimming with intelligence and innocence.

  “Quite the beauty,” Tanya stated, purposefully vague about whom she was speaking of as her tongue slid across her full lips.

  Owen returned his gaze to the wedding party. It picked up energy as the older women swirled about in their multi-colored dresses. Even the men sang more zestfully. An incredible sense of awkwardness buffeted Owen as his hormones kicked into another gear, “Why the hurry?”

  “Her family wants to marry her off before how you Americans say?” Tanya pointed, feigning a lack of familiarity with her grasp of English slang, “She begins messing around?”

  Owen’s eyes tracked along Tanya’s extended finger, pointing to a white towel clutched in the bride’s delicate hand but stained red with—

  “It’s proof that her hymen has been broken, a traditional part of the Gypsy wedding.”

  Tanya’s matter of fact voice hardly belied Owen’s uneasiness. He couldn’t believe he was witnessing a teenage girl parading down the street with the bloody evidence of her deflowering brazenly displayed like the geek Ted showing off Samantha Baker’s panties in Sixteen Candles.

  “You Americans love your violence,” Tanya said, observing Owen’s reaction. “But if it’s natural you get so uncomfortable.”

  “Where are they going?” Ernie said, speaking past Owen.

  “Inside, as they should. Come.” Tanya’s voice tightened, “My country is full of legends. I am interested to hear what you have found.”

  The sky had shifted from blue to a dark purple. A brief tremor when she spoke suggested an acknowledgement of something more, but Owen chalked it up to the evening’s drop in temperature.

  Tanya stepped away, her rounded ass swaying in her tight jeans.

  “Really?” Ernie gripped Owen’s shoulder as he turned to follow. “This Tanya is a walking stereotype. For that matter, she looks to be maybe ten years older than you.”

  “What are you, my mother? Besides, a woman older than me can’t be intelligent and hot?”

  “Look, there are plenty of women like Tanya in big Eastern European cities, no matter what their age. But that kind of women doesn’t just hang out in backwater towns like Dibrovno.”

  Owen laughed.

  “Open your eyes, lad. There’s something more to her than she’s letting on.”

  “I hope so,” Owen said with a smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had something more of anything. Stop worrying, I got it under control.”

  “Just watch yourself,” Ernie said. “Because sometimes it seems to me as if the milk has slipped right out from your cereal bowl.”

  “Is there a problem?” Tanya stood in the middle of the street, looking back.

  The two men stopped arguing. Owen shook his head no as she pivoted and led them into a labyrinthine maze of side streets. Their footsteps echoed loudly on the mostly deserted cobblestone, the gloom deepening as they neared the tavern near the town center. The three story building huddled up to a squat bridge that crossed the river, the castle dominating the opposite bank.

  Ernie held the door open as Owen and Tanya plunged inside, pausing before following. He mentally circled back to the demons stalking his thoughts, his eyes settling on a thicket of cattails sprouting from the river’s broodingly dark waters. The castle’s immense walls dwarfed it all, rising gray and stout from the water’s edge. It was a view he had seen many times before. Nonetheless, for some reason his skin crawled. He craned his head up, trying to find the source of his anxiety. The gloaming couldn’t conceal someone watching from a castle window; a tall, bulky figure, his head unusually large and misshapen.

  Ernie blinked in confusion.

  However, when his vision came back into focus the figure had vanished.

  He shot another look at the castle. Seeing nothing he shook it off as a product of his imagination, stooping to pass under the tavern’s doorway. Inside, dark wooden paneling evoked the feeling of being in an old English pub. However, and as he knew from past visits, this tavern had a local twist. Each of the three cozy floors displayed the mounted head of an animal prodigious in size for its species. A boar’s head hung near the front door, its five inch tusks protruding from its snarling mouth. The second floor exhibited an imposing antlered red stag. On the top floor, the bar owner had mounted the immense shaggy skull of a wisent, or European wood bison; an animal that could weigh over a ton. In the weeks since the team had arrived no one had offered the slightest help in identifying the hunter who had killed these magnificent beasts. Any questions about it had always been met with a shrug, invariably followed by a round of shots and conservation about their progress on the dig.

  Ernie glanced up at the boar’s head and then wound his way through the packed wooden tables greeting him with the rapid fire sound of the local dialect, laughter, and silverware clinking on plates. The air was redolent of cigarette smoke and boiled sausage. A darkly stained wooden bar ran along one wall. Behind it a well-polished mirror had been lined with a collection of vodkas, various brandies, locally made medovuha, as golden sweet as the honey it were distilled from and samogon; a spirit similar to American moonshine and capable of leaving your head feeling just as fuzzy. A group of locals sat on the bar stools, enjoying the local flavors.

  The atmosphere felt more spirited than usual. It reminded Ernie of a Slavic version of Fat Tuesday’s pre-Lenten celebrations. He meandered along, enjoying the room’s energy. Plush high backed booths packed with people lined the oppos
ite side of the bar, pictures and artwork filling the walls. Knowing he was at best a third wheel, he let Owen and Tanya settle at a table toward the back, lingering on an old woodcut that caught his eye. He had not remembered seeing it before.

  The image showed a man standing in a field and pointing an old flintlock rifle at the clearing’s edge. The sun blazed high in the sky. The man’s target, a wolf, lurked in the tree line. Just its head showed. The foliage concealed the animal’s body. At that, Ernie frowned. The proportions appeared way off.

  “Interesting wood carving, no?” One of the waitresses stopped alongside him. She balanced an empty tray on her hip, her blonde hair tied back. Many of the locals spoke English, something that surprised Ernie to no end considering the lack of linguistic diversity he had encountered in other small European villages over the years.

  “It’s one of Dibrovno’s oldest surviving works of art, dating back to the fifteenth century,” She said, tilting her head in admiration.

  “It’s an interesting piece,” Ernie responded, noting the hint of pride in the woman’s voice. “But, and forgive me, the scale is all wrong for such a composition. Regardless of the overly large sun the wolf’s head is far too high off the ground.”

  “First, that’s not the sun.” She laughed, teeth flashing. “Second…” Her smile faded, “That’s not a wolf.”

  Ernie flinched as if she had raised her hand to strike him, face drained of color as the waitress skittered off with a mischievous look on her face.

  Owen was smiling at something Tanya had just told him when Ernie joined them.

  “Don’t mind her,” Tanya said, watching the waitress approach another table. “She likes playing games with the tourists.”

  “What’re you talking about?” Owen said.

  “Werewolves.”

  Owen grinned, brushing her off. However, a brief shot of concern flashed across Tanya’s face at the sight of Ernie’s expression. She reached over to grasp Ernie’s rigid forearm. “That carving depicts one of local lore’s foremost werewolf hunters. A man named Ivan Mistrov – in this case pictured dispatching his foe sometime in the middle of the fifteenth century.”

  “You can’t be—”

  “Serious?” Tanya’s eyes danced as she responded to Owen, “Of course not. But people believed. Some still do.”

  “And you?” Ernie said.

  “I believe Ivan killed a lot of innocent wolves.”

  Tanya squeezed Ernie’s hand, her grip warm and comforting. In spite of his turbulent emotions Ernie relaxed.

  A young waitress set down three glasses of the village brewery’s offerings. The deceptively strong server spilled not a single amber colored drop before taking their dinner order and disappearing as silently as she had come. In the ensuring hours and over steaming plates of smoked pheasant and trout, dumplings, potato pancakes, and thickly buttered rye bread washed down with sloshing glasses of ale - Owen and to a lesser extent, Ernie told their tale, from their friendship’s origins to how they had ended up in Dibrovno.

  Tanya had listened attentively, following her ale by nursing a glass of the cloyingly sweet local mead. The entire time her fingers teased along the handle of the glass as she leaned into the conversation, barely contained breasts swinging forward heavily in her thin blouse and dominating Owen’s attention.

  Ernie struggled to read her. She carried herself like a male fantasy of what a Slavic woman should be, but Tanya’s questions about the dig always flowed back to their interpretation as to how the German soldiers ended up in a mass grave. If she didn’t get a sufficient answer then she waited, and asked the same question phrased differently. He couldn’t help but key in on her back and forth with Owen regarding his findings as to the German unit’s identity and date of disappearance. It evinced knowledge of historical matters that bordered on the professional.

  Owen had just finished stating his belief the men had died sometime in either July of 1941 or March of 1944 when Tanya interrupted once more…

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Try me.”

  Owen blinked, his mouth suddenly hanging open.

  “You’re looking at me like I was your boss and just asked to jump on your computer,” Tanya said with a grin. “Don’t worry, just tell me.”

  Owen gulped, shocked that such a woman would be so interested in his work, but then he began answering her question…

  The remains indicated the mass grave’s contents came from an infantry battalion in the German army. However, the German army deployed roughly one thousand infantry battalions in three huge Army Groups during the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, no less the myriad replacement units in the years that followed. That said, because of the mass grave’s location German Army Group South seemed to be the most likely source of the battalion in question. Even so, this meant they still needed to figure out which of the army group’s component armies, corps, divisions, regiments, and then battalions the lost soldiers has been assigned. Though significant fighting in the region surrounding Dibrovno only occurred during July of 1941, and then once more during the German Army’s retreat through the region in March of 1944 - that didn’t help nearly as much as one would have thought.

  That is because one key element toward identifying the bodies revolved around reviewing individual Kriegstagebuch or unit war diaries created by the Operations Staff of the various German commands. They had started with the Army level war diaries, with another set of key documents coming from Army directives to its subordinate Corps level command staffs. Beyond that, they had also examined the Morgenmeldung and Tagesmeldungen - each day the Corps level headquarters passed these morning and evening reports up to the Army. As Owen explained to a surprisingly still observant Tanya they had spent the better part of three weeks reviewing these combined primary sources from Army Group South’s Armies (as several armies form an army group); Corps (as several corps forms an army); and Divisions (as several divisions form a corps). The goal was to reach a point where it made sense to review records of individual battalions from divisions that reported losing an entire squad in the region near Dibrovno. This however, had led them to their next problem.

  A German army battalion featured numerous sub-units; primarily Kompanien, or companies further broke down into several Züge, or platoons, and within each platoon the seven to eleven man Gruppen, or squads. Given the number of bodies found in the mass grave, they assumed the men came from a lost squad. Absent additional evidence however, they didn’t know for sure. They had collated their findings and organized it into a structured database but this combined effort revolved around solving a final underlying issue. Whoever disposed of the bodies had removed much of the identifying information that would have survived seventy years in the ground. For weeks, they had been stumped. Then two days ago they got a break.

  A grad student had found an intact Erkennungsmarke. This identifying tag that soldiers in the Second World War era German army wore told the researchers that the bodies had not been recovered and reburied. That was because the tag featured a perforated middle. Normally half would remain with the body. The other half would be turned over to the Kompanie headquarters, which possessed a list of each soldier’s tags. This list was regularly updated to reflect men leaving the unit as casualties, or through transfers. From there these lists were tracked and recorded by the German Armed Forces Information Office for Casualties and War Prisoners. To help filter through these records, Owen had contacted a friend at the Bundesarchiv – Militärarchiv, or German Federal Records Military Archive.

  “So…” Owen finished. “We await a response from my query. Then we can identify one of the bodies, and thus his unit. Though figuring out how these men died is something that remains a mystery.”

  “Your diligence is quite remarkable,” Tanya said.

  “No one’s accused me of bei
ng hard working before,” Owen said, laughing.

  “That may be, but I approve of your efforts,” Tanya said. “When I sink my teeth into something I don’t let go either.”

  “And how often is that?” Ernie interrupted.

  “Is what?”

  “That you sink your teeth into something?”

  “Not as often as you seem to think.”

  Ernie leaned back in his chair. Tanya outwardly fit in, several of the townspeople recognized her when they walked in, but it’s not like she got a warm response. And on top of that there was the way she spoke, as if she had spent significant time in the western world. Plus there was...Oh my— Owen had once more dipped his eyes into Tanya’s substantial cleavage. Ernie suspected that no matter how smart she was, this Tanya would go heels-to-Jesus for Owen in less time than it took them to wrap up the dig.

  For that matter Ernie had his own reasons for being here, reasons brought to the forefront by his and Cindy’s work. The stratigraphic method used for excavation had been chosen from the many possible procedures for disinterring a mass grave because it allowed them to maintain intact the dig’s walls as they removed human remains and artifacts. In doing so, they had hoped to identify how the grave had been created. Nevertheless, nothing found indicated signs of tool usage. It was as if somebody had dropped the bodies into a pre-existing hole. In addition, the human remains featured a total absence of ballistic or projectile damage. Cindy found long scrape marks instead, including a large tooth fragment driven through the middle of—

  Ernie suddenly noticed the late hour. He unfolded several bills, dropping them on top of a hand written check the waitress had left in a copper colored tray. Tanya and Owen took the hint. They all hustled outside and said their goodbyes before going their separate ways. Ernie had hardly taken a few steps when he stopped. He felt it again, the inescapable tingling feeling of being watched.