by Dean Koontz
* * *
8
When General Blade called at nine o'clock that night, he listened to Kelly's report on the B-17 attack, then got right to the bad news. "The German high command has ordered those Panzers and all attendant companies westward. According to our sources, Kelly, they'll be coming your way."
Although he had been expecting this for days, Kelly was speechless. His hands shook. He felt cold and weary. "When, sir?"
"They'll be moving out from a staging area near Stuttgart the day after tomorrow, taking as direct a land route as possible. Twice they'll leave the regular highways for shorter secondary roads that will take them through the back country where Allied reconnaissance won't be likely to spot them. That's maybe a-hundred-eighty miles from your position, as the crow flies-two hundred and sixty miles by road. Considering the size of this deployment, they'll be lucky to make your camp in four or five days. So you'll have guests in about a week, Kelly."
The major brushed nervously at his face. "How many guests, sir?"
"Not easy to say," Blade said. "According to our sources inside Germany, this isn't a neat division. It's an amalgam of broken Panzer brigades that escaped the disaster in Russia-and some of the new tanks fresh from Hitler's underground factories near München. There will also be a detail of SS overseers to watch that the Wehrmacht fights according to Hitler's orders. So you have maybe ninety Panzers-"
"Ninety!"
Blade went on as if he had not heard. "Approximately fifteen armored cars, ten self-propelled howitzers, four Jagd-panthers-that's the tank-hunting tank the krauts have-nine heavy-transport trucks carrying well-anchored 88-mm ack-ack guns to provide defense against air attack on the convoy. Then there are two big flatbed transports with high-range aerial searchlights to pick out targets for the 88s, forty-odd trucks carrying fifteen hundred infantrymen to secure what objectives the Panzers overwhelm, and an undisclosed number of motorcycle escorts and message men."
"Has anyone there estimated the length of time they'll need to get across the bridge, sir? It's a narrow bridge, awfully narrow."
"Twelve hours," Blade said. "Or more."
Kelly swallowed hard. "Maybe we could tear down this bridge and build a wider one before they get here. We could do it if you'd get us the materials-"
"Wouldn't do much good," Blade said. "That convoy isn't going to drive straight through. They'll need a rest about the time they get to you. Even if the bridge were wider, they'd stay overnight."
"Why don't we bomb the convoy, sir?" Major Kelly asked.
"It would be a high-risk proposition," Blade said, "taking a squadron of bombers that far behind enemy lines to hit a well-guarded convoy."
"Yes, but-"
"Command already decided to let them come ahead until they're in our territory where we have the advantage. We can take them out much easier and with fewer field casualties if they're closer to the front. Since your bridge was bombed this morning, I guess Command also decided to slow them down until a good defense can be readied. Otherwise, I can't tell you much."
"How far behind the lines are we?" Kelly asked.
"Only one hundred and sixty-two miles, Kelly!"
"I don't suppose there's any chance that the front will have moved this far by the time the Panzers get here?"
"You never can tell," Blade said. That meant no.
"Sir, what can we do?"
"I've given considerable thought to your problem," Blade said. "Is it possible to use the ruse you employed with the first Panzer unit?"
"No," Kelly said, though it pained him to say it. "That was a small force that passed in half an hour. But this division, this big convoy is going to stay the night. We'd never make them believe we were Germans, sir, especially when none of us speaks the language." He felt hollow inside, eaten out by termites. In a moment, he'd fall down in a heap of dust. "Is it possible for us to be airlifted out of here, sir?"
"No," Blade said. "That bridge must be kept open after the Panzers are across, so our own people can use it if the front suddenly breaks eastward."
"If we're dead, we can't keep it open, sir." This seemed like an inescapable truth to Kelly, an argument so sound it would knock Blade off his chair.
It didn't knock him off his chair. "I have faith in your ingenuity, Kelly," General Blade said. "I'm sure you'll pull through this with some clever plan or other." He cleared his throat, or perhaps he snarled at someone in his office, and he said, "Now, what supplies do you need? I think I can have them flown into you before dawn."
Five minutes later, the Blade and Slade Show was over.
Shortly before midnight, Major Kelly sat in his quarters and put mud on his head. His heart really wasn't in the treatment tonight. If they were all going to be killed a week from now, what did it matter if he was bald or hairy? Nevertheless, he smoothed the muck all over his head. By worrying about his hair, perhaps he was making a rebuff to death. Perhaps, in this simple ceremony, he was actually taking a courageous stand. Or maybe he just didn't have the guts to face up to what was coming.
He was interrupted in the midst of these unpleasant thoughts and in the middle of his pate ministrations by Maurice and two tough-looking French kids who were about sixteen years old and deadly as sharks. His hair slicked back and glimmering in the dull light, his face shiny, grease beaded in the folds around his nose, wearing his customary baggy pants and dirty checkered shirt, smiling that dangerous smile that meant he smelled a profit, Maurice sat down on the end of Kelly's cot and said, "Bon soir!"
Kelly, sitting at his table-desk with a headful of mud, reluctantly nodded at the bootleg bottle of Jack Daniels that stood out in plain sight. When Maurice smiled for an answer, Kelly poured him a drink in a battered tin cup. Maurice tossed this off in one swallow.
"What can I do for you, Maurice?" Kelly asked, wiping his muddy left hand on a damp towel.
Maurice ignored the major's strange cap. "You have hurt your hand!" He pointed at the bandage under the mud on Kelly's left hand.
"It's nothing. A minor knife wound."
Maurice pushed his glass forward, brushed a fat mosquito off his forehead, and raised his greasy white eyebrows in surprise. "Hand-to-hand combat, Major? I've had no report of Germans in the area, not in our backwater!"
"No Germans," Kelly agreed.
Maurice accepted a second slug of whiskey as graciously as if it had been freely offered, but he did not drink it. He was perplexed, trying to figure out where his complex information-gathering network could have failed. "Then how do you say-mutiny?"
"No mutiny," Kelly said.
"Who cut you, then, bon ami?"
Kelly recalled the interrogation of Lily Kain when he had run himself through, and he couldn't see how he could explain that. "I stabbed myself."
"Suicide!" Maurice said, clutching his chest. "You musn't think it!"
"Not suicide," Kelly said. "If I'd wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't have used a knife-and I wouldn't have stabbed my hand, Maurice."
"Where would you have stabbed?" Maurice asked, leaning forward. He was clearly interested.
"Perhaps my neck," Kelly said.
"Ah. Yes. Quick."
But Kelly didn't want to talk about the knife wound any more. He couldn't explain it and, besides, the longer they sat there the more conspicuous his headful of mud seemed to become. Hoping to get rid of the Frenchman quickly, he said, "What brings you here tonight, eh?"
"Trouble," the old man said.
The hard, young sharks with him nodded gloomily like a couple of mutes accidentally signed on for a Greek chorus.
Kelly sipped his whiskey. It tasted awful. It didn't really taste awful, he knew, but his subjective sense of taste had been badly thrown off by Maurice's sudden and unwelcome appearance.
Maurice said, "When my friends face trouble, I face it with them."
"And I'm facing trouble?"
Maurice nodded gravely. "You, your men, bad trouble."
Because he was feeling perverse, be
cause the drying mud made his scalp itch, because he felt foolish, and chiefly because he didn't think even Maurice could get him out of the coming debacle, Kelly didn't respond as Maurice expected. "No trouble here," he said.
"You toy with me," Maurice said.
"No. No trouble."
"Credat Judaeus Apella."
"It's true."
Maurice tossed off his whiskey. "You know as well as I that a major Nazi Panzer division is corning. It's far larger than the one we hoaxed."
"True enough," Kelly said. He squashed a mosquito that was burrowing in the mud on his head, poured himself more whiskey even if it did taste horrible.
"And you don't call this trouble?"
The sharks raised their eyebrows, looked at each other for Kelly's benefit.
"No," Kelly said. "You call it trouble when there's a chance of your escaping it. Words like trouble, danger, risk-all imply safe options. There is no way out of this. Therefore, it is no longer trouble; it is merely fate. We have a bad case of fate, but no trouble."
"There is one flaw in your reasoning," Maurice said. He was smug as he poured a third glass of whiskey, his heavy lips tight, as if he had just sampled a fine vintage wine or had delivered a particularly special bon mot.
Kelly watched the greasy frog carefully. What was in Maurice's crafty mind? What did the old man have to gain here, now? "What's the flaw?"
"There is a way out," Maurice said.
"Can't be."
"Is."
"Can't be."
"Is."
"Tell me about it," Kelly said, tossing back his whiskey. "Better yet, I'll tell you about it, because you've got to be thinking some of the same things I've thought myself. First, you're going to suggest that my men and I take our machines and withdraw into the woods, hide out for the duration of the Germans' crossing. But that won't work. Even if we could eliminate every sign of the camp, we couldn't get the big machines deep enough into the woods to hide them. Someone would stumble upon them; we'd be found out and killed in an hour. You might also suggest my men and I level the camp and move into Eisenhower where we could hide until the Panzers are by. That won't work either. Moving the machines would churn up the road through your village and leave us wide open to any other German patrols on another route. Besides, and most importantly, the Nazis are bound to run at least a minimal search of your town. There is no way we could conceal seventy-odd men and all these big machines against even a cursory inspection. Lastly, you might think we could hide out in the woods and abandon our machines to be destroyed by the Germans. But if we did that, General Blade would abandon us, and then we'd be as good as dead- stranded here behind German lines."
"I'm aware of all that," Maurice said.
"But there's still a way?" Major Kelly, against all his better judgment, allowed himself a bit of hope, the terminal disease. He couldn't help himself.
"Yes. A way out," Maurice said.
His sixteen-year-old sharks nodded soberly.
Having forgotten the mud on his head, treacherous hope kindled, Major Kelly leaned toward The Frog. "How much will this cost us?"
"Considerable," Maurice said.
"I was afraid of that."
"However, you will receive a great deal in return-you will live."
Kelly gave himself another dribble of whiskey, though he could not afford to drink much more. Already, he was seeing two of everything, including two of Maurice. He did not want to get drunk enough to see three of everything, because the pair of Maurices was already more than he could stand. "Specifics. What do you want in return for whatever help you give me?"
Maurice held up a hand for patience. "First let me explain how you can save yourselves. After that, the price will not seem so bad."
"Go ahead." He drank his dribble of whiskey.
Maurice put down his glass, got up, stiff and serious even in his baggy trousers. "You will not move any of your equipment or attempt to conceal your presence. Not even the big D-7 must be driven away. Instead, you will build a town on this site, a town designed to shield all of your heavy machinery and your men from the Nazis."
Kelly butted the heel of his palm against his head to clear his ear and hear better. Chunks of dried mud rained down around him. "Build a town?"
"Exactly," Maurice said. He smiled, warmed by his own suggestion. "You will build a French village here and hide your massive machines in the specially designed buildings. Clever, eh?"
"Impossible," Kelly said. "You don't throw up a building in a few hours. And we'd have to-construct a whole town before the Germans got here."
"You do throw up the building in a few hours," Maurice said. "If you do not intend to live in it for very long."
"That's another problem. Who will live in this town?" Was he hearing Maurice right? Did he have mud in his ears? He checked. No mud.
"I will supply half the population of my village. With your men, they will make a convincing citizenry."
"My men don't speak French. They'll be found out immediately."
"I've considered that," Maurice said. He poured himself a last whiskey. "The one institution the Nazis have been careful not to tamper with extensively is the Roman Catholic Church. Hitler respects the Church's worldwide power if not its philosophy. Himmler himself is a Catholic. Therefore, our fake town will be a religious community, a retreat for priests and nuns and selected members of the laity. It will be built around a convent. And we will tell the Nazis that, in this convent, the deaf and dumb are taught simple skills. Your men will be the poor afflicted peasants, while the women from my village have already volunteered to be the nuns. It is quite simple, really."
"More simple yet," Kelly said, "why not build the convent in Eisenhower? We could conceal the machines and my men inside of it and not have to build a whole damned village."
"No good," Maurice said. "According to my resources, the man in charge of this Panzer convoy is General Adolph Rotenhausen. He was in the first waves of shock troops to overwhelm France. He passed through my town then, out on the main highway. He made his headquarters in my house four nights running during the invasion of France. He knows Eisenhower has no convent. And he knows that, in the midst of this awful war, no new convent could possibly be built, for lack of supplies."
"But if he knows your town," Kelly said, "he must know that no other village exists here, in this clearing."
Maurice shook his head. "Rotenhausen's Panzers invaded and departed France on the same highway, that which passes through my village eight miles south of here. Perhaps follow-up troops came down this old back road. But no Panzers. In those days, they did not have to use unlikely routes to avoid air attack. There was no resistance to them at that time."
"Still... build a whole town? Madness!"
"The alternatives are unworkable. And while Eisenhower is not built to conceal your machines, a town of your own making would be so built."
"We can't build a village in a week," Kelly insisted.
"I've heard that the Army engineers can do the impossible."
"Not in a week. Not with the bridge to rebuild as well."
Maurice waved his hand as if to say this was taken care of. "I will detail workers from my village to augment your labor supply."
"Unskilled labor. It's-"
"Remember that your town must last only one brief night! And the convent alone will house your machines- and be beyond suspicion."
They listened to the crickets chirrup outside the corrugated walls. The same insects would probably sing on his grave, Kelly knew. Above their chorus, he imagined the clatter of Panzer-tread, the stamp of marching feet, ack-ack guns, submachine guns... He knew it was hopeless, knew they were doomed. Yet he had to play along. A character in a fairy tale must play his role regardless of the certainty of the outcome. Otherwise, the disaster might be even worse than that which the script, the story, called for.
"We'll have to talk about this some more, though it won't work."
"But it will work," Maurice said.
The sharks smiled. "It will."
"Never. But let me wash this mud off my head. Then we'll talk about it some more and pretend we think it really could work."
PART THREE
The Village
July 18/July 21, 1944
* * *
1 / JULY 18
At dawn, Kelly, Beame, and Slade stood by the bridge ruins, watching the road on the far side of the gorge where it disappeared around the hillside.
"They aren't coming," Slade said.
"Give them a chance," Beame said. "The sun's hardly up."
A dirty mist lay in the gorge, roiled over the river. Snakes of mist slithered up the bank and danced restlessly before them, touched by golden morning light. Behind, to the east, the sun had risen below the tree line. Hot, orange Halloween light like the glow from a jack-o'-lantern's mouth flushed between the black tree trunks where the forest was thin, and it filled the east entrance to the clearing.
"They aren't coming," Slade said. He was delighted by the plan, because it made the major look like an idiot And coward. It gave Slade justification for murdering the dumb bastard and taking command of the unit. He giggled.
"Look!" Beame shouted, suddenly excited.
On the other side of the gorge, an odd procession filed around the bend in the road, making for the place where the bridge had stood. Maurice lead the parade, dressed in another-or maybe the same-checkered shirt and pair of baggy pants. Behind him were middle-aged men with their sleeves rolled to their elbows-and older but evidently vigorous grandfathers with their sleeves rolled up too. Only a few teenage boys were included, for most young men were off fighting the war. But there were many strong young girls and determined matrons in their long scrub dresses, hair tied back from their faces. They carried hoes, rakes, shovels, picks. The men pushed creaking wooden wheelbarrows or carried precious tools.