by Dean Koontz
"Then no one must light a lantern inside any house but the rectory-and the church," Maurice said. "Your men must pass the night in darkness."
"They haven't much choice," Kelly said.
Though the individual partitions were heavy, there was plenty of sweaty, dirty, grunting, fear-driven manpower to cope with them. Twenty men wrestled each monstrous twelve-by-twenty wall from the bed of the German truck, and balanced it between them with considerable shouting and staggering back and forth.
"For God's sake don't drop it!" Private Fark screamed, as he took the front position on one of the walls. "It'll kill us if we lose control!"
With sunbrowned muscles bulging and sweat running in salty streams, with grunting and cursing that would have embarrassed many of the hard-working Frenchwomen if they had understood it, the walls were moved from the truck and toted to various platform houses which were now framed but not yet sided. The walls were balanced precariously against the frames of the platform houses, again by sheer muscle power, and the carpenters went to work nailing the panels to the beams which had been waiting since yesterday. Twenty long nails across the top, one every foot, then the same ratio down both sides, hammers smacking loudly, a chorus of blows echoing across the camp. When the straining, sweat-slimed men let go of the wall, the carpenters scurried along the base, praying that the thing would not rip loose and collapse on them, and they nailed that edge down as well. Then, while Maurice went for another load and while the majority of the husky laborers went to other tasks-of which there were many-the carpenters resecured the walls, pounding in again as many nails, one exactly between each pair they had already placed. At the corners of the building, where the prefabricated panels often did not meet in perfect eye-pleasing harmony-and where, in fact, there was sometimes as much as a two-inch gap despite the cut-to-order nature of the materials-the carpenters nailed up vertical finishing boards from foundation to eaves; these ran perpendicular to the horizontally slatted ex-barn-walls and provided the one-story structures with a surprisingly well-constructed appearance.
"And appearances are all that matter," Major Kelly told Lieutenant Beame as they inspected the first prefabricated building to be finished. "The krauts won't be going into any of these places. Just the rectory. Maybe the church, if any of them are Catholics."
"But the church and the rectory will be real," Beame said. "So we'll be safe. We'll pull it off."
"Never." It was the most positive reply Kelly had in him.
And yet the afternoon went fairly well, so far as the other men were concerned. A great deal was accomplished. The ten-foot-square entrance foyer of the convent-into which the Germans might venture, though no farther-was framed and walled, even though the convent's larger outer walls had not yet been thrown up. A few outhouses were completed and roofed. "You call yourselves members of the Army engineers?" Kelly screamed at his men. "It takes you two hours to build a goddamned shithouse? Faster! Faster, damn you!" The rectory walls crept toward a nonexistent second-story roof, these not prefabricated but crafted with care; and between the porch posts the floor of the rectory's veranda took shape, and the stoop in front of it and the steps leading down from the stoop and the sturdy banisters on both sides of the steps. "Three and a half days!" Kelly screamed at the men working the rectory job. "That's all you have. Not a month!" The town's small church, built on low stone walls similar to those that would give the convent the air of permanence it needed, was framed from foyer to auditorium to sanctuary to sacristy, complete with an eighteen-foot bell tower in which there would not be any bell. Hopefully, the Germans would not notice this omission, arriving as they were in darkness and leaving in the early morning light. A few picket fences were set up around small lawns. And off the street behind the convent, four men worked hard on an old-fashioned stone well complete with its peaked roof, winch bar-but no bucket attached. An isolated religious community would have a few open wells. But who was to say these must function after so many years? This was a dry well. Principally, it was a dry well because the distance between the top of the well wall and the bottom of the pit was six feet, and half of that aboveground. This well could never draw water. But it looked as if it once had. And appearances, as Kelly kept telling his men, were all that mattered. Throughout the afternoon, then, the fake community went as the stone well went: smoothly, steadily, with much sweating, cursing, scraped hands, torn fingernails, cuts, bruises, tortured muscles, suspected hernias, known hernias, and exhaustion. Very little of what they built could be used, but it all looked as if it had been lived in for decades.
Therefore, Kelly should have been happy.
But he distrusted happiness. He forced himself to scowl all through the long, hot afternoon.
He was still scowling at suppertime. He stood by the mess tent at the southern end of the camp, eating a boiled-potato sandwich (with mustard) and scowling at the other men who were hastily consuming creamed chipped beef on toast and cling peaches. He ruined many good appetites.
"Why are you so depressed?" Lyle Park asked. "Those prefab walls are doing the trick. The work is coming along well."
Before the major could tell Park about Kowalski's latest prediction, they were interrupted by Lieutenant Slade. Shouting and waving, Slade ran along the tent row, leaping gracelessly over guide ropes and pegs, dodging the men who were sitting before their tents eating supper. The men tried to trip Slade, but he was too quick and watchful for them to succeed. He stopped at the mess tent and unconsciously saluted Major Kelly. "Urgent message, sir! Call from General Blade!"
"Blade's on the radio now?" Kelly asked, around a mouthful of bread and boiled potatoes.
"It's about the Panzers," Slade said.
Kelly paled. "What about the Panzers?"
"I don't know," Slade said. "That's what the general wants to talk about."
Slade appeared to be sincere. Kelly had not overlooked the possibility that Slade was engaged in some elaborate hoax designed to make a fool of his superior officer. Slade would want to get even for yesterday, for the things that the major had shouted at him. But right now, Slade was sincere. He seemed to have forgotten, for the moment, that he hated Kelly. His awe of General Blade was not faked; that old syphilitic bastard must really be on the shortwave set.
Kelly dropped his mess tin and ran. None of the men in front of the tents tried to trip him, but they worked hard to get Slade who ran close behind. Again, they failed.
Since the HQ building had been torn down to make way for the fake community, the radio was being sheltered in Slade's tent, the only tent other than Major Kelly's which was roomy enough to hold the monster and the square wooden table on which it stood. Major Kelly stooped and entered the gloomy canvas room. The place smelled of wet straw and a few dozen mice. Since neither seemed to be present, Kelly supposed that both odors were endemic to the lieutenant. Wrinkling his nose, he went quickly to the radio and picked up the microphone just as Slade entered the tent behind him.
"Kelly here, sir," the major said, voice heavy with dread.
"Kelly?" Blade asked, unnecessarily.
"Yes, sir."
"How's my favorite major?"
Kelly frowned. "I don't know, sir. How is he?"
"Who is this?" General Blade asked, suddenly suspicious.
"This is Major Kelly," Major Kelly said.
"Well, then... how's my favorite major?" Blade asked again.
Kelly hesitated. "Is that a riddle, sir?"
"Is what a riddle?"
Kelly decided that if it were not a riddle, it was a joke. He was expected to repeat the straight line, and then Blade would give him the punch line. He sighed and said, "How is your favorite major, sir?"
"That's what I asked you," General Blade said, somewhat gruffly.
Kelly wiped at his face with one palsied hand. "Sir, I'm confused. I don't know anyone under your command except my own men. I don't know your favorite major and I can't-"
"You're beginning to confuse me," General Blade said. "Let'
s just talk about the Panzers, okay?"
Swallowing hard, Kelly nodded at the microphone.
"Okay?" Blade asked.
Kelly nodded.
"Kelly?"
Kelly nodded vigorously.
"Is that okay? Kelly, are you there?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you come up with any plans to use against them?" the General asked.
Kelly suddenly realized that the General did not know about the fake town. He had called three nights ago, a few hours before Maurice came to the major with this plan for hoaxing the Germans, and he had not called back since. "We have a plan," Kelly admitted. But he knew there was no way to explain the fake village to Blade, not in a few minutes and not over the radio and not when they were both confused. So he lied. "Same as before. We'll masquerade as Germans."
"I suggested that a few nights ago," Blade said.
"We're taking your advice, sir." Blade had apparently forgotten all of the faults with the masquerade plan, which Kelly had detailed in their last conversation. Syphilitic old men probably could not retain anything when their brains had finally decayed to the consistency of cold oatmeal.
"Well," Blade said, "what I called to tell you won't come as bad news-not now that you're prepared for the krauts." He took a sip of coffee or blood. "Kelly, you won't have to sit on pins and needles for three more days, waiting for the Panzers. Our original information was faulty. They left the staging area at Stuttgart two days early. So they'll reach you around midnight on the twenty-first, two days earlier than we thought."
Kowalski had been right again.
"Tomorrow night, sir?"
"That's right, Kelly."
For the next few minutes, they talked about Panzers. The general described the size and quality of the force, though nothing had changed in that regard since he had described it a few nights ago. They were still dead. Doomed. Mincemeat.
"Will you be able to handle them?" Blade asked.
"Sure." All he wanted now was to get Blade off the air, stop wasting time.
"I hope so," the general said. "I don't want my favorite major to be hurt."
Kelly could not understand what in the hell the general's favorite major had to do with any of this. Who was this bastard Blade loved so much? Then Kelly decided that the average syphilitic old man could not always be expected to make sense. "Nothing will happen to him, sir. Your favorite major will come through this war unscathed. I'm sure of it."
"That's the kind of talk I like to hear!" Blade said. "Well... I'll be getting back to you in a couple of days, once this is over. Good luck, Kelly!"
"Thank you, sir."
Kelly put the microphone down. It brought him nothing but static now, a sound oddly like that you could hear when you held a seashell to your ear: distant, forlorn, empty, as lonely as old age. He switched it off.
"Well," Slade said, "this puts a new light on the case, doesn't it?"
Kelly said nothing.
"We'll never finish the town before midnight tomorrow," Slade said, a titter barely muffled behind one hand. "We'll have to fight the krauts."
"No," Kelly said. Fighting meant violence. Violence meant death. "We aren't taking any chances. We have to hang on, even if there isn't any hope, even if we dare not hope. I keep thinking... Hansel and Gretel may crawl into the oven, but they don't get burned, you know? And Jack only suffered bruises when he fell down the beanstalk. I don't know... All I do know is that we can't take any initiative. We just play our roles, no matter how crazy they get. So... Maurice will have to supply us with fifty more workers-a crew to cut up barn walls in and around Eisenhower and deliver them to us while the other hundred workers are committed solely to the job in the clearing. The new crew can start cutting walls tonight. We'll work later, until eleven or twelve, by lanterns. We have to play our parts."
"This is disgusting!" Slade stamped his foot petulantly. "Cowardly! What will people think of us Stateside? What will history say? What will mother say?"
Kelly left the stinking tent and went to see Maurice about the additional workmen.
* * *
8 / JULY 21
At 2:00 in the morning, Lieutenant Slade quietly pushed back the tent flaps and stepped outside. He looked at the summer sky. The moon peeked from between fast-moving gray clouds that appeared to be packing into a single seamless bank as they rolled westward. The soft flicker of heat lightning pulsed behind the overcast. There would be no rain tonight. The air was warm, but not moist. The light wind was as dry as sand. However, when these clouds collided with those cold, moisture-laden thunderheads sailing in from the sea, rain would fall in bucketfuls. That would be farther west, toward the Atlantic. Tonight, in this part of France, the sky would remain overcast, but there would be no rain.
Good, Slade thought. The deeper the darkness and the fewer the obstacles it otherwise imposed, the better weather it was for assassination.
Slade looked up and down the twisting, cluttered tent row. No lights showed. No one moved. The silence was profound. In the darkness, even when a piece of the moon threw pale light into the clearing, the tents looked like concrete rather than canvas shelters; they resembled the sharply angled humps of an antitank defense perimeter.
The men were sound asleep, except for those patrolling the bridge road a mile to the east and a mile to the west of the camp as an early warning system to guard against any surprise enemy movement on that highway.
And except for Lieutenant Slade, of course. The assassin.
Slade stepped quietly across the dusty footpath to the tents which faced his own, and squeezed between two of them without alerting the men who were sleeping inside. He walked away from the tents and the woods behind them, heading north toward the bridge. His ultimate destination was Major Kelly's tent, where he would cautiously peel open the flaps, take out his revolver, and blow the major's head off. However, in case someone had been watching him, some snooping son of a bitch peering out a crack between tent flaps, Slade walked in the opposite direction from Kelly's tent, until he was certain that the darkness would have finally concealed him from any unknown observer. Then he stopped and looked at the low sky, catching his breath, trying to still his booming heart.
Now was the time.
Slade unbuckled his trousers, and took his potato-sack mask out of his undershorts. He had kept it there ever since he had fashioned it eight days ago. He had developed a rather severe rash on his testicles and stomach from continuous abrasive contact with the burlap, but he did not care. All that mattered was that no one had yet seen the mask-and no one would see it in connection with Lieutenant Richard Slade. Only Kelly would see it and know who was behind it. Then the bastard would die.
Now was the time.
Slade pulled the scratchy mask over his head. He buckled his trousers and took the heavy black revolver from his pocket. His hands trembled. To steady his nerves, he opened his mouth and sucked in a deep breath. He nearly choked on a mouthful of burlap. He spat it out, coughed, sneezed, and began to wonder if this was really a good idea.
But, yes, it was essential that he go through with it. If the unit was to organize and fight the Germans, that organization had to begin right away. There was no time for equivocation; Major Kelly must die. Slade must blow his head off and assume command. Tonight.
Now was the time.
He started for the eastern edge of the camp where he could follow the trees southward until he was behind Kelly's tent.
But he kept bumping into things. In less than ten steps, he bumped into a lumber pile. He recoiled from that only to bump into the blade of the D-7 dozer a moment later. Ten feet beyond the dozer, he walked into the collapsible loading crane and gave himself a knot on the forehead. Trying to be more careful, he walked with his hands out in front of him like a blind man feeling his way-and he fell into the seven-foot-deep main bunker from which the roof had been stripped two days ago. Work on the fake structure which would stand on the bunker had been postponed in favor of other projec
ts, but in his blood lust Slade had forgotten about that. It was almost as if he were trying to walk into things. He wasn't trying to walk into things, of course. It was just damned difficult to see where he was going in the dark with a burlap bag over his head.
Getting painfully to his feet, surprised that he had broken no bones, he stuck his revolver in his pocket, and pulled himself out of the abandoned bunker. His shoulder ached; his head ached; he had twisted his ankle. Yet he would not give up. Outside again, on his hands and knees, he tugged the mask into place and looked around.
The tent site was silent. He could not recall if he had cried out when the ground dropped from under him. But even if he had, he had apparently not been loud enough to wake any of the men. Good. Now was the time.
Once more, he hobbled toward the eastern arm of the forest.
Petey Danielson was in the dream, sitting in a mystic, cross-legged pose, his glistening intestines spilled all over his lap. He dug his hands into them, trying to stuff his guts back into his torso...
Finally, Kelly woke, gagging, sweaty, his hands fisted. In a few minutes, when he retained only a vague impression of the nightmare, he became aware of a pressure in his bladder. Because he felt as if Danielson's spirit were lingering within the tent, he decided fresh air and a good piss were exactly what he needed. He got up and went outside.
The best way to get around while wearing a burlap bag over your head, Slade discovered, was to crawl on your hands and knees. He had learned this valuable lesson after walking into three trees. By the time he reached the corner of the clearing where the southern and eastern arms of the forest met, he was shuffling along quite nicely on all fours, making good time.
Slade figured he was wearing holes in his trousers, but he did not care. He cared only about blood. Kelly's blood.
In five minutes, he stopped directly behind Kelly's tent, his back to the woods. He knelt there, surveyed the camp, found it as quiet and still as it had been when he started his journey. A thrill of murderous anticipation coursed through him.