Down: Trilogy Box Set

by Glenn Cooper

  “Paul, you made one mistake,” Emily said, her lips quivering and eyes filling with tears. “You were the most virtuous man I ever knew.”

  His smile lasted but a second. “Let me tell you what I did, Emily. I came home early after a meeting was canceled. I found Jane in bed—in our bed with our next-door neighbor, a smarmy fellow, a chartered accountant who talked about golf incessantly, a man I tolerated at best. But he was fit and robust and laughed a lot and I was, well, the man I was. She was naked, on top of him, moaning with pleasure. I had never heard her moan like that. They didn’t see me and I slipped out. I instantly became a different person. I didn’t recognize myself, even my thoughts. Everything seemed automatic. I went to the downstairs closet where I kept my father’s shotgun. I loaded both barrels and put two more shells in my pocket. I climbed the stairs. They were finished and lying side-by-side. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t give them time to say anything or cover themselves. I fired at close range and quickly turned away from the result. I reloaded and put the barrel in my mouth and reached for the trigger. An instant later I was intact, in a pleasant meadow looking up at a featureless sky. I was here. Any virtue I may have possessed was erased by my act.”

  “Oh, Paul,” she said.

  “Paul is gone, Emily. I’m Pasha now, a beast who works for other beasts.”

  John had noticed that Yagoda had left the room after Pasha’s pronouncement on the merits of the books. Now he was back with another man who, although before John’s time, was instantly recognizable—the small powerful figure of Joseph Stalin.

  “So, Pasha, the books are good?” Stalin said in English.

  Loomis looked at him with terribly sad eyes. “Yes, they are useful, I would say. Very useful.”

  “These books,” Stalin asked. “Only copies.”

  John answered with a lie. “They’re the only ones.”

  “Good, good,” Stalin said.

  John spoke up, “Then we have a deal.”

  “And who are you?” Stalin asked.

  “I’m John Camp. I’m a soldier.”

  “American soldier,” Stalin said cheerfully. “I had many American friends. I wonder how many are in Hell in America. One day, maybe with these books I will build fast ships to go to America and see how it is. Maybe I see cowboys and Indians.” He laughed heartily in anticipation of his next sentence. “Maybe I see Roosevelt.” He pointed at Emily. “Who are you?”

  “Emily Loughty. Sam and Belle are my nephew and niece.”

  “That is nice. Big happy family. What do you do?”

  “I’m a scientist, like Paul.”

  “Very nice! I like scientists.” He turned his gaze on Trevor and Brian. “And you two?”

  “I’m a soldier too. And a policeman,” Trevor said.

  Brian said, “I can’t believe I’m talking to Joseph Stalin. Unreal. I work in television and the movies.”

  “We have no movies here. Maybe one day, eh?”

  John stepped into the conversation. “Do we have a deal?”

  “A deal, a deal …” Stalin pondered. “Tell me, where is Garibaldi?” Stalin asked.

  “What does that have to do with a deal?” John asked.

  “He comes into my country with a big army and you ask me what this has to do with deal?” Stalin fumed.

  “He’s not far,” John said. “He’s waiting with that big army for us to return with the children.”

  “He likes children?” Stalin asked. “I like children too. They are precious to me. The books are very nice but I need better deal.”

  John saw Emily’s hateful stare.

  “Oh yeah,” John asked. “How much better?”

  “You bring me Garibaldi’s head and we have deal.”

  John stood up. “That’s not going to happen.”

  The soldiers were finely attuned to Stalin’s gestures. At a slight, upward movement of his head they drew weapons, swords and pistols, and began moving from the walls in a tightening noose.

  “John?” Trevor said, testing his fists.

  “Don’t,” John said. “You’re making a big mistake,” John told Stalin. “This is a good deal. These books can change everything. We go home with our people, no one gets hurt.”

  “You think I care if people get hurt?” Stalin said. “When life was precious thing I liquidated millions to achieve goals for Russia. Here nothing is precious except for children.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Loomis yelled. “Take the bloody deal and let these people leave.” He chose one of the slowly advancing soldiers and blocked his path, a symbolic but useless gesture.

  “Take him away!” Yagoda shouted, and two soldiers grabbed him by the arms and began pulling him to the door.

  “Leave him alone!” Emily shouted.

  Loomis called to her as he was about to be dragged through the doorway. “Emily, I know how to plug the hole.”

  “How, Paul? How?” she screamed, but he was gone.

  Brian and Trevor were braced for contact. “What do you want us to do, guv?” Trevor asked.

  “Stand down,” John said. “We can’t win this. We tried, we failed.”

  They let themselves be taken.

  “If we’re not back by tomorrow afternoon, Garibaldi is going to attack,” John said, his arms pulled behind his back.

  “Castle is strong,” Stalin said.

  “It won’t hold up to his weapons.”

  “We have these weapons too.” He made the whistling noise of a singing cannon. “I give you until morning to agree to bring me Italian’s head.” He stood before Emily and because of his height had to look up at her. “Then I torture this woman to see if it change your mind.”

  “You’re a fucking bastard,” John seethed.

  “This is Hell, Mr. Camp. Here we are all fucking bastards.”

  32

  It wasn’t a prison cell but it wasn’t a comfortable guest room either. The locked room was in the castle tower, several floors below the breezy chamber where Emily had been kept during her last confinement at Marksburg. This room was outfitted with the basics. Straw mattresses on the stone floor, a basin of drinking water, and a slop bucket in one corner. The men turned their backs when Emily had to use it.

  The single window was too small to wiggle out of even if they had the time to dislodge the bar. As the sky darkened so too did the room and without candles it would be pitch dark soon. They sat with their backs against the cool stone walls.

  “This sucks,” Trevor said. It was a minor variant to what he’d been saying for hours and John was getting irritated.

  “Yes, Trev, of course it sucks. We know it sucks. That makes us all grade A suckers. What else were we supposed to do? Pound the castle with cannon fire and rockets with the kids inside?”

  “We had to try the non-violent way first,” Emily said. “We tried and failed.”

  “Don’t mind me,” Trevor said. “I don’t like being locked up and I especially don’t like Arabel getting split from us.”

  “Giuseppe and the others will get us out,” Emily said without much conviction.

  “When the Italians attack this tower is going to get smacked hard,” Brian said. “It’s the easiest target and a direct hit’ll bring a few thousand tons of stonework down on our noggins.”

  “God, I hope Arabel and the children aren’t here,” Emily said.

  “So, you got a plan worked out, bossman?” Brian asked John.

  “The only thing I can think of is raising a racket in here, making them think that one of us is sick or that two of us are brawling, anything to get the guards to come inside. Then we overpower them, etcetera.”

  “Oldest trick in the book,” Brian said.

  “Probability of success?” Emily asked.

  “Not high,” John said. “But what else do we have?”

  “You can agree to Stalin’s terms,” Emily said.

  “And take out Giuseppe?” John asked. “Are you really suggesting that?”

  “No, of cou
rse not. But it gets you out of here. One of us gets out which is better than none of us.”

  “Oh, please,” John protested.

  “You could tell Garibaldi not to hit this tower,” Trevor said. “You could give him the layout of the place. That’ll be helpful when he storms it.”

  “Zip it guys,” John said. “I’m not leaving you.” He said it to everyone but he was looking at Emily.

  “Then send Emily,” Trevor said. “Or one of us.”

  “I’ll think about it,” John said.

  The last traces of light disappeared.

  The room was dark and silent. They had stopped talking. The others could tell Brian was dozing by his incipient snorts. One after another they fell asleep until deep into the long night John was the only one awake.

  He had his arm around Emily. Her head was heavy on his shoulder. Although his limb had fallen asleep nothing was going to make him move it and disturb her.

  Until—

  There were two dull cracks outside their door followed by a sharp cry then a third crack.

  Trevor awoke and started to say something but John shushed him. Brian woke up with a “What?” Emily’s head lifted from John’s shoulder.

  They all stood up, squinting into the blackness.

  There was a sound of a key in the lock.

  John whispered that he would take one side of the door, Trevor the other, Brian the middle ground. He pushed Emily down to the mattress and told her to stay low.

  The fumbling continued. John felt along the wall until he was sure he was to the right of the door.

  The lock caught and the door swung open.

  The light of a brightly burning torch momentarily blinded him.

  A huge figure filled the doorway illuminated by candlelight from the hall.

  Trevor pounced first, just as Emily recognized the great bald head with its scraggly fringe and shouted, “No! He’s a friend!”

  Trevor was already on the ground, having been swatted away by the giant of a man.

  John recognized him too from Himmler’s caravan.

  “Andreas!” Emily said, rushing to hug him. “Dear Andreas.”

  “You thought about Andreas?” the eunuch asked in German.

  She fell into German to answer. “Of course I did.”

  “You remembered me?”

  “Yes! I remembered you.”

  “Did you go to your home?” he asked.

  “I did.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “I had to save the children.”

  “I saw them,” he said. “I wanted to play with them but the Russians would not let me. I do not like the Russians.”

  John was outside the room, surveying the damage. Three Russian soldiers were collapsed on the floor near a stout, bloody axe handle. John commandeered their pistols and swords and distributed them to Trevor and Brian but Emily begged off.

  “Andreas,” she said in German. “Do you know where the children are being kept?”

  “In King Frederick’s palace. No, it is not his palace any more. Silly Andreas. Joseph is the king. They are in a chamber two floors above the great banqueting hall.”

  “Can you take us there?”

  “It will be difficult. There will be soldiers.”

  “We have to try.”

  Emily told the others what she had learned and Trevor asked John, “How do you want to play it, guv?”

  “We’re going to have to go right into the lion’s den,” he said. “Our best hope is that the lion’s asleep.”

  They ran into trouble right away but they knew it was coming. Andreas told Emily that two guards were patrolling the entrance to the tower. They had seen the eunuch enter so with Emily’s instructions, John sent Andreas out first to banter with the guards using the two Russian words he knew—da and nyet, over and over. When they were distracted by his antics, John, Trevor, and Brian made fast, silent work of them then dragged their unconscious bodies behind a wagon. They crossed the outer bailey easily and John peeked through the gate that led to the main bailey and the palace.

  The bailey looked deserted except for some tethered horses that must have caught his scent for they began to whinny. He heard some Russian voices coming from across the courtyard but the torches illuminating the bailey didn’t cast their light far enough to make them out.

  He decided to send Trevor and Brian to the left. He and Emily would go right. They’d hug the walls and creep around the perimeter until they flanked the palace guards. Andreas would slowly march right down the middle of the bailey.

  “Can you tell him to act drunk?” John asked Emily.

  “He always acts a bit drunk,” she said.

  “Have him exaggerate.”

  She had him kneel down so she could whisper the instructions in his ear and then kissed his cheek for encouragement.

  “Andreas will act drunk now,” the huge man said happily.

  He wasn’t going to win any awards for his performance. He weaved and sang and overplayed the part and most importantly, he moved too fast, prompting them to navigate the perimeter at a run. In the darkness Brian tripped up on a bucket but Andreas’s awful singing drowned out the clatter.

  The six soldiers guarding the palace entrance were hardened Russian troops, part of Stalin’s elite guard. They were not the sorts to be distracted by an oaf like Andreas.

  When he got within twenty feet, one of them came forward to challenge him, lowering his pike and growling in Russian.

  “Da, nyet, da, nyet,” Andreas said waving his arms and hopping on one foot.

  Three more guards came forward to assist their comrade and two held back, drawing their swords just in case.

  “When I say go,” John whispered to Emily, “you do not go. You stay.”

  The pike man ordered Andreas to halt and when Andreas didn’t, he made an aggressive move forward preparing to spear him.

  “Go!” John said, loud enough for Brian and Trevor to hear but not so loud as to wake the palace.

  There wasn’t an attack plan. John saw Brian going for one of the men by the door so he went for the other one. Swords clashed and the three soldiers near the pike man turned back toward the door. Trevor fell upon them, swinging his sword wildly and catching a non-dominant arm with a lucky blow. The man grunted and kept fighting.

  The pike man made the mistake of turning his back to Andreas. With one giant step, the eunuch enveloped the man in his arms, lifted him off his feet, and crashed him down to the ground. A boot to the face did the rest. Andreas picked up the man’s pike the wrong way around but rather than switch the polarity, he gripped the pole above the steel and used the blunt end as a long club, showering the nearest men with blows.

  Brian drew first blood with a sword thrust to a belly and quickly turned to help Trevor who was up against a skillful opponent. John’s adversary was also a highly accomplished and strong swordsman who matched him stroke for stroke and drove him back on his heels. The soldier kept coming, taunting him in Russian and though John couldn’t understand what he was saying, it got his blood boiling which only made him fight harder. He ducked under a looping slash and came out of his crouch to deliver a left fist to the man’s bearded face, followed by a knee to the groin and a right-handed sword chop to the back of his neck. The blade must have shocked the spinal chord because the man went down, paralyzed.

  John looked up in time to see Brian knocking the sword out of one man’s hand allowing Trevor to fight him in a style he preferred—he dropped his own sword and engaged in a punch-up, pummeling the man with fists to the face and gut. Brian kept going with his sword and cleaved his last opponent’s face. Andreas seemed to finally figure out he wasn’t using the business end of the pike. With a backward thrust, he skewered the last man through the chest.

  Emily emerged from the shadows and they began to drag the mumbling and groaning bodies to the darkness of the perimeter wall. Standing on either side of the now unguarded palace door were two longbows and full quive
rs.

  “These’ll come in handy,” Brian said, grabbing them and stashing them out of the torchlight.

  The only light inside the great hall came from the dying embers in the hearth but it was just enough to show the outlines of tables and chairs.

  “Which way?” Emily asked Andreas.

  He began to lead them across the hall to a rear corridor lit by torches spaced every thirty or forty feet. At the end of the corridor a door led to a pitch-black staircase. John took down one of the torches and moved to the front, just behind Andreas who clomped up the stairs, pausing on the first landing to let them know that this was where King Joseph slept.

  On the next landing they heard loud snores. John handed the torch to Brian and poked his head around the corner. By the light of one wall torch, he saw a single guard on a chair midway down the hall, his head bowed, snoring into his lap.

  “Ask him if it’s the room about halfway down the hall?” John told Emily.

  Andreas said yes.

  “One man,” John whispered to Trevor and Brian. “I’ll take him.”

  “No, me,” Trevor said.

  John gave him a single nod to the affirmative and stepped aside.

  Trevor sized up the situation and decided not to crawl or tiptoe. He merely walked at a fairly normal and leisurely pace until he was standing over the guard who at the last moment awoke and gave him an unfocused, bleary look before getting a fist to the temple.

  The door was secured from the outside with a heavy bolt which Trevor slid open as quietly as he could.

  John signaled for the others to follow him as Trevor disappeared into the room. At the door, John lifted the limp guard back onto the chair. They all went inside and shut the door behind them.