The Keep

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Let’s stay hidden until we know what they’re after.”

  “If they don’t find you they may think you’ve run off…and they may take their anger out on your father. If they decide to search for you, they’ll find you—we’re trapped between here and the edge of the gorge. Nowhere to go. Better to go out and meet them.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll be here if you need me. But for now I think the less they see of me the better.”

  Reluctantly Magda rose and pushed her way through the brush. The group had already passed by the time she reached the road. She watched them before speaking. Something was wrong here. She could not say what, but neither could she deny the feeling of danger that stole over her as she stood there on the side of the path. The SS major was there, and the troopers were SS too; yet Papa appeared to be traveling with them willingly, even appeared to be making small talk. It must be all right.

  “Papa?”

  The soldiers, even the one assigned to pushing the wheelchair, spun around as one, weapons raised and leveled. Papa spoke to them in rapid German.

  “Hold—please! That is my daughter! Let me speak to her.”

  Magda hurried to his side, skirting the menacing quintet of black uniformed shapes. When she spoke she used the Gypsy dialect.

  “Why have they brought you here?”

  He answered her in kind: “I’ll explain later. Where’s Glenn?”

  “In the bushes behind me.” She replied without hesitation. After all, it was Papa who was asking. “Why do you want to know?”

  Papa immediately turned to the major and spoke in German. “Over there!” He was pointing to the very spot Magda had told him.

  The four troopers quickly fanned out into a semicircle and began moving into the brush.

  Magda gaped in shock at her father. “Papa, what are you doing?” She instinctively moved toward the brush but he gripped her wrist.

  “It’s all right,” he told her, reverting to the Gypsy dialect. “I learned only a few moments ago that Glenn is one of them!”

  Magda heard her own voice speaking Romanian. She was too appalled by her father’s treachery to reply in anything but her native tongue.

  “No! That’s—”

  “He belongs to a group that directs the Nazis, that is using them for its own foul ends! He’s worse than a Nazi!”

  “That’s a lie!” Papa’s gone mad!

  “No it’s not! And I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. But better you hear it from me now than when it’s too late!”

  “They’ll kill him!” she cried as panic filled her.

  Frantically, she tried to pull away. But Papa held her tight with his newfound strength, all the time whispering to her, filling her ears with awful things:

  “No! They’ll never kill him. They’ll just take him over for questioning, and that’s when he’ll be forced to reveal his link with Hitler so as to save his skin.” Papa’s eyes were bright, feverish, his voice intense as he spoke. “And that’s when you’ll thank me, Magda! That’s when you’ll know I did this for you!”

  “You’ve done it for yourself!” she screamed, still trying to twist free of his grip. “You hate him because—”

  Shouting in the brush, some minor scuffling, and then Glenn was led out into the open at gunpoint by two of the troopers. He was soon surrounded by all four, each with an automatic weapon trained on his middle.

  “Leave him alone!” Magda cried, lunging toward the group. But Papa’s grip on her wrist would not yield.

  “Stay back, Magda,” Glenn said, his expression grim in the dusky light as his eyes bored into Papa’s. “You’ll accomplish nothing by getting yourself shot.”

  “How gallant!” Kaempffer said from behind her.

  “And all a show!” Papa whispered.

  “Take him across and we’ll find out what he knows.”

  The troopers prodded Glenn toward the causeway with the muzzles of their weapons. He was just a dim figure now, backlit in the glow from the keep’s open gate. He walked steadily until he reached the causeway, then appeared to stumble on its leading edge and fall forward.

  Magda gasped and then saw that he hadn’t actually fallen—he was diving for the side of the causeway. What could he possibly—?

  She suddenly realized what he intended. He was going to swing over the side and try to hide beneath the causeway—perhaps even try to climb down the rocky wall of the gorge under protection of its overhang.

  Magda began to run forward. God, let him escape!

  If he could get under the causeway he would be lost in the fog and darkness. By the time the Germans could bring scaling ropes to go after him, Glenn might be able to reach the floor of the gorge and be on his way—if he didn’t slip and fall to his death.

  Magda was within a dozen feet of the scene when the first Schmeisser burped a spray of bullets at Glenn. Then the others chorused in, lighting the night with their muzzle flashes, deafening her with their prolonged roar as she skidded to a stop, watching in openmouthed horror as the wooden planking of the causeway burst into countless flying splinters.

  Glenn was leaning over the edge of the causeway when the first bullets caught him. She saw his body twist and jerk as streams of lead stitched red perforations in lines across his legs and back, saw him twitch and spin around with the impact of the bullets, saw more red lines crisscross his chest and abdomen. He went limp. His body seemed to fold in on itself as he fell over the edge.

  He was gone.

  For the next few nightmare moments Magda stood paralyzed and temporarily blinded by the afterimages of the flashes. Glenn could not be dead—he couldn’t be! It wasn’t possible! He was too alive to be dead! It was all a bad dream and soon she would awaken in his arms. But for now she must play out the dream: She must force herself forward, screaming silently through air that had thickened to clear jelly.

  Oh no! Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no!

  She could only think the words—speech was impossible.

  The soldiers were at the rim of the gorge, flashing their hand lamps down into the fog when she reached them. She pushed through to the edge but saw nothing below. She fought an urge to leap after Glenn, turning instead on the soldiers and flailing her fists against the nearest one, striking him on the chest and face. His reaction was automatic, almost casual. With the slightest tightening of his lips as the only warning, he brought the short barrel of his Schmeisser around and slammed it against the side of her head.

  The world spun as she went down. She lost her breath as she struck the ground. Papa’s voice came from far off, calling her name. Blackness surged around her but she fought it off long enough to see him being wheeled onto the causeway and back toward the keep. He was twisted around in his chair, looking back at her, shouting.

  “Magda! It will be all right—you’ll see! Everything will work out for the best and then you’ll understand! Then you’ll thank me! Don’t hate me, Magda!”

  But Magda did hate him. She swore to hate him always. That was her last thought before the world slipped away.

  An unidentified man had been shot resisting arrest and had fallen into the gorge. Woermann had seen the smug faces of the einsatzkommandos as they marched back into the keep. And he had seen the distraught look on the professor’s face. Both were understandable: The former had killed an unarmed man, the thing they did best; the latter for the first time in his life had witnessed a senseless killing.

  But Woermann could not explain Kaempffer’s angry, disappointed expression. He stopped him in the courtyard.

  “One man? All that shooting for one man?”

  “The men are edgy,” Kaempffer said, obviously edgy himself. “He shouldn’t have tried to get away.”

  “What did you want him for?”

  “The Jew seemed to think he knew something about the keep.”

  “I don’t suppose you told him that he was only wanted for questioning.”

  “He tried to escape.”

  “And the net
result is that you now know no more than you did before. You probably frightened the poor man out of his wits. Of course he ran! And now he can’t tell you anything! You and your kind will never learn.”

  Kaempffer turned toward his quarters without replying, leaving Woermann alone in the courtyard. The blaze of anger Kaempffer usually provoked failed to ignite this time. All he felt was cold resentment…and resignation.

  He stood and watched the men who were not on guard duty shuffle dispiritedly back to their quarters. Only moments ago, when gunfire had erupted at the far end of the causeway, he had called them all to battle stations. But no battle had ensued and they were disappointed. He understood that. He too wished for a flesh-and-blood enemy to fight, to see, to strike at, to draw blood from. But the enemy remained unseen, elusive.

  Woermann turned toward the cellar stairway. He was going to go down there again tonight. One final time. Alone.

  It had to be alone. He could not let anyone know what he suspected. Not now—not after deciding to resign his commission. It had been a difficult decision, but he had made it: He would retire and have no more to do with this war. It was what the Party members in the High Command wanted from him. But if even a whisper of what he thought he’d find in the subcellar escaped, he would be discharged as a lunatic. He could not let these Nazis smear his name with insanity.

  …muddied boots and shredded fingers…muddied boots and shredded fingers…

  A litany of lunacy drawing him downward. Something foul and beyond all reason was afoot in those depths. He thought he knew what it might be but could not allow himself to vocalize it, or even form a mental image of it. His mind shied away from the image, leaving it blurred and murky, as if viewed from a safe distance through field glasses that refused to focus.

  He crossed to the arched opening and went down the steps.

  He had turned his back too long waiting for what was wrong with the Wehrmacht and the war it was fighting to work itself out. The problems were not going to work themselves out. He could see that now. Finally he could admit to himself that the atrocities following in the wake of the fighting were no momentary aberrations. He had been afraid to face the truth that everything had gone wrong with this war. Now he could, and he was ashamed of having been a part of it.

  The subcellar would be his place of redemption. He would see with his own eyes what was happening there. He would face it alone and he would rectify it. He would not know peace until he did. Only after he had redeemed his honor would he be able to return to Rathenow and Helga. His mind would be satisfied, his guilt somewhat purged. He could then be a real father to Fritz…and would keep him out of the Jugendführer even if it meant breaking both his legs.

  The guards assigned to the opening into the subcellar had not yet returned from their battle stations. All the better. Now he could enter unobserved and avoid offers of escort. He picked up one of the flashlights and stood uncertainly at the top of the stairway, looking down into the beckoning darkness.

  It struck Woermann then that he must be mad. It would be insane to give up his commission! He had closed his eyes this long—why not keep them shut? Why not? He thought of the painting up in his room, the one with the shadow of the hanging corpse…a corpse that seemed to have developed a slight paunch when he had last looked at it.

  Yes, he must be mad. He didn’t have to go down there. Not alone. And certainly not after sundown. Why not wait until morning?

  …muddied boots and shredded fingers…

  Now. It had to be now. He would not be venturing there unarmed. He had his Luger, and he had the silver cross he had lent the professor. He started down.

  He had descended half the steps when he heard the noise. He stopped to listen…soft, chaotic scraping sounds off to his right, toward the rear, at the very heart of the keep. Rats? He swiveled the beam of his flashlight around but could see none. The trio of vermin that had greeted him on these steps at noon were nowhere in sight. He completed his descent and hurried to where the corpses had been laid out, but came to a stumbling, shuddering halt as he reached the spot.

  They were gone.

  As soon as he wheeled into his darkened quarters and heard the door slam behind him, Cuza leaped from his chair and went to the window. He strained his eyes toward the causeway, looking for Magda. Even in the light of the moon that had just crested the mountains, he could not see clearly to the far side of the gorge. But Iuliu and Lidia must have seen what had happened. They would help her. He was sure of that.

  It had been the ultimate test of his will to remain in his chair instead of running to her side when that German animal had knocked her down. But he had had to sit fast. Revealing his ability to walk then might have ruined everything he and Molasar had planned. And the plan now was more important than anything. The destruction of Hitler had to take precedence over the welfare of a single woman, even if she was his own daughter.

  “Where is he?”

  Cuza spun at the sound of the voice behind him. He sensed menace in Molasar’s tone as he spoke from the darkness. Had he just arrived or had he been waiting there all along?

  “Dead,” he said, searching for the source of the voice. He sensed Molasar moving closer.

  “Impossible!”

  “It’s true. I saw it myself. He tried to get away and the Germans riddled him with bullets. He must have been desperate. I guess he realized what would happen to him if he were brought into the keep.”

  “Where is the body?”

  “In the gorge.”

  “It must be found!” Molasar had moved close enough so that some of the moonlight from the window glinted off his face. “I must be absolutely certain!”

  “He’s dead. No one could have survived that many bullets. He suffered enough mortal wounds for a dozen men. He had to be dead even before he fell into the gorge. And the fall…”

  Cuza shook his head at the memory. At another time, in another place, under different circumstances, Cuza would have been aghast at what he had witnessed. Now…

  “He’s doubly dead.”

  Molasar still appeared reluctant to accept this.

  “I needed to kill him myself, to feel the life go out of him by my own hand. Then and only then can I be sure he is out of my way. As it is, I am forced to rely on your judgment that he cannot have survived.”

  “Don’t rely on me—see for yourself. His body is down in the gorge. Why don’t you go find it and assure yourself?”

  Molasar nodded slowly. “Yes…Yes, I believe I will do that…for I must be sure.” He backed away and was swallowed by the darkness. “I will return for you when all is ready.”

  Cuza glanced once more out the window toward the inn, then returned to his wheelchair. Molasar’s discovery that the Glaeken still existed seemed to have profoundly shaken him. Perhaps it was not going to be so easy to rid the world of Adolf Hitler. But still he had to try. He had to!

  He sat in the dark without bothering to relight the candle, and prayed Magda was all right.

  His temples pounded and the flashlight wavered in his hand as Woermann stood in the chill stygian darkness and stared at the rumpled shrouds that covered nothing but the ground beneath them. Lutz’s head was there, open-eyed, openmouthed, lying on its left ear. All the rest were gone…just as Woermann had suspected. But the fact that he had half expected to face this scene did nothing to blunt its mind-numbing impact.

  Where were they?

  And still, from far off to the right, came those scraping sounds. Woermann knew he had to follow them to their source. Honor demanded it. But first…

  Holstering the Luger, he dug into the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled out the silver cross. He felt it might give him more protection than a pistol.

  With the cross held out before him, he started in the direction of the scraping. The subcellar cavern narrowed down to a low tunnel that wound a serpentine path toward the rear of the keep. As he moved, the sound grew louder. Nearer. Then he began seeing the rats. A few at first�
�big fat ones, perched on small outcroppings of rock and staring at him as he passed. Farther on were more, hundreds of them, clinging to the walls, packed more and more tightly until the tunnel seemed to be lined with dull matted fur that squirmed and rippled and glared out at him with countless beady black eyes. Controlling his repugnance, he continued ahead. The rats on the floor scuttled out of his path but exhibited no real fear of him. He wished for a Schmeisser, yet it was unlikely any weapon could save him were they to pounce on him en masse.

  Up ahead the tunnel turned sharply to the left, and Woermann stopped to listen. The scraping noises were louder still. So close he could almost imagine them originating around that next turn. Which meant he had to be very careful. He had to find a way of seeing what was going on without being seen.

  He would have to turn off his light.

  Woermann did not want to do that. The undulating layer of rats on the ground and on the walls made him fear the dark. Suppose the light were all that kept them at bay? Suppose…

  It didn’t matter. He had to know what lay beyond. He estimated he could reach the turn in five long paces. He would go that far in the dark, then turn left and force himself to take another three paces. If by then he found nothing, he would turn the flashlight back on and continue ahead. For all he knew there might be nothing there. The nearness of the sounds could be an acoustical trick of the tunnel…he might have another hundred yards to go yet. Or he might not.

  Bracing himself, Woermann flicked the flashlight off but kept his finger on the switch just in case something happened with the rats. He heard nothing, felt nothing. As he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he noted that the noise had grown louder, as if amplified by the absence of light. Utter absence. There was no glow, not even a hint of illumination from around the bend.

  Whatever was making that noise had to have at least some light, didn’t it? Didn’t it?

  He pushed himself forward, silently counting off the paces while every nerve in his body howled for him to turn and run. But he had to know! Where were those bodies? And what was making that noise? Maybe then the mysteries of the keep would be solved. It was his duty to learn. His duty…