Crucified

by Michael Slade

"were each fed six hundred rounds from boxes within the bubble. Almost all the rounds were expended when the mid-upper gunner opened fire on the Junkers 88."

  "That makes sense."

  "Right. What Sweaty—Earl Swetman, the wireless operator—told me was that as Ack-Ack—the rear gunner, Dick DuBoulay—shouted a warning through the intercom, the Junkers 88 strafed the plane. The pilot yanked the bomber into a dive, while Jonesy—the mid-upper gunner, Trent Jones—

  fired back. He made no mention of gunfire from the rear turret, which would have been drowned out, had it occurred, by the deafening din of the closer guns."

  "Was the night fighter hit?"

  "Probably not. It came at them again. But that time, neither turret shot back."

  "Why?" wondered Rutger.

  "Sweaty feared the rear gunner was dead. By then, the Junkers had torn the bomber's tail to shreds, and Ack-Ack's turret was smack-dab in the line of fire."

  "And the other gunner?"

  "Hours before, as the plane was nearing the coast of Europe, both gunners had tested their weapons over the open sea. The interrupter gear of the dorsal turret malfunctioned, so while the rest of the crew prepared to enter enemy airspace, both gunners got together to solve the problem. Later, as the Junkers attacked, Sweaty feared the gear problem wasn't fixed."

  "So the dorsal guns ceased firing?"

  "Possibly. After Jonesy had all but emptied his ammo boxes at the fighter in its first pass."

  "What's so interesting about these boxes?" Rutger asked, nodding his head at the ammunition supply for the rear turret.

  "Almost all the rounds are here. The number of expended shells is what I'd expect from the test fire alone."

  "Meaning the rear gunner didn't fire a single shot during the night fighter's attack?"

  "So it would seem."

  "Perhaps the guns jammed?"

  "All four at once? Unlikely."

  "So?"

  "So the rear gunner must have been killed before he could fire back. I could accept the logic of that if his body was riddled with bullet holes. But not when he got stabbed three times in the back."

  Rutger frowned. "First, the Junkers attacked, strafing the tail with cannon fire but missing the rear turret. Then Ack-Ack yelled a warning to the crew by intercom. The pilot jerked the plane into a defensive corkscrew as the mid-upper gunner fired at the Junkers. But before the rear gunner could fire back, too, one of the crew knifed him to death."

  "Impossible. According to Sweaty—and I believe him—all seven men were in their combat positions."

  "So how do you explain it?"

  "I thought Ack-Ack might have been killed by some sort of mechanical device hidden in his turret. A machine that could knife him several times, then vanish along with the blade's broken-off handle. But a thorough search of the bomber has failed to yield any evidence of that."

  "Puzzling."

  "The only possible explanation is that Ack-Ack was already dead inside the rear turret long before the Junkers appeared on the scene."

  "So when was he killed?"

  "Back when both gunners were together at work on the problem with the interrupter gear. While our victim was sitting in the rear turret, the traitor stabbed him three times in the back, then closed the doors, pocketed the snapped handle of the knife, and climbed up into the mid-upper turret for the bombing run. From that point on, the crewmen remained in their combat positions until they bailed out."

  "So the killer was Trent Jones?"

  "Consider the case against him: That was his first mission with the crew of the Ace of Clubs. Jonesy was the odd man out, and more important, he was stationed halfway back from the forward five crewmen, which meant that his comings and goings would be the least in view."

  "But why kill the rear gunner?" Rutger asked.

  "To keep him from shooting back. The Junkers 88 was sent by Judas to shoot down the Ace and insert the secret agent into Hitler's Reich. The British conspirators had to guarantee success, so they sacrificed the rear gunner and doomed the other five crewmen to captivity or death."

  "Jones became a Judas goat: the decoy that lures other animals to the slaughter."

  "It seems that way."

  "You don't sound convinced."

  "Two things trouble me. Why does the DNA of the skeleton found in the rear turret match that of the bludgeoned body pulled from the river? Was Lenny Jones really Ack-Ack DuBoulay's grandson? If so, why did he lie?"

  "And the second worry?"

  "Sweaty swears that Ack-Ack DuBoulay himself raised the alarm through the intercom. He's certain that Ack-Ack was alive when the Junkers attacked. They'd known each other since bomber training."

  "But that can't be if Ack-Ack was knifed before the Ace of Clubs entered Nazi airspace."

  "True," Wyatt agreed. "So either Jonesy impersonated Ack-Ack well enough to fool Sweaty, or Ack-Ack wasn't in the rear turret as everyone thought. The intercom didn't indicate where voices came from. It was simply an audio circuit that each crewman plugged into when he was manning one of the combat stations. Sweaty heard Ack-Ack because it was Ack-Ack's voice in the intercom, but it was coming from the mid-upper—not the rear—turret."

  "The gunners had switched positions."

  "The crucial defense station in a Halifax bomber was the rear turret, since night fighters usually attacked from behind and below. If the rear gunner was shot, the mid-upper gunner took over, because the plane wasn't out of danger until it landed in Britain. And sometimes—as we both know—not even then."

  Rutger nodded. "The Luftwaffe lurked over English bases to shoot bombers coming home."

  "According to Sweaty, Trent Jones joined the crew of the Ace after his own Halifax crashed in a takeoff accident. He'd survived by bailing out through the rear hatch, the escape route of the tail gunner. And before the Ace departed on its last mission, the crew took their new gunner up on a test flight so that Ack-Ack could check Jonesy out on the turrets and the guns. Turrets in the plural. He wanted to make sure Jonesy could defend them and the plane from either the dorsal or the rear turret."

  "So the voice the other five heard through the intercom wasn't Jones's. It was Ack-Ack mimicking the voice of the new gunner."

  "Ack-Ack stabbed Jonesy in the rear turret as the rest of the crew focused on the danger of flying into Nazi Europe. Then, masked head to foot, he took over the mid-upper turret. From then on, no one dared leave his battle station to venture back to the rear turret."

  "Not when split seconds counted."

  "When Ack-Ack spoke in his own voice from the mid-upper turret, those up front assumed he was back at the plane's tail. When he mimicked Jonesy from the same turret, he had five advantages. One, he used few words. Two, Jones's voice was new to the crew. Three, he had a Welsh accent. Four, the roar of engines muffled his voice. And five, all the crewmen expected some distortion because the moisture from their breath froze in their mikes."

  "But why was Ack-Ack's identification found on Jones's skeleton in the rear turret?"

  "My guess?" Wyatt said. "Jonesy was told he was part of a secret mission to win the war. That's why they were adding him to the Ace of Clubs' crew. If the plane was shot down in Germany, his role was to confuse the Gestapo by saying he was Ack-Ack. Then the real Ack-Ack—armed with false papers and able to speak fluent German—would be free to contact Judas."

  "That's a dangerous ruse."

  "I doubt Jonesy gave a damn. His wife had gone off to Australia with their child. Sweaty described him as quiet and withdrawn, eaten up inside. Now he was being offered the chance to make his life count."

  "For king and country?"

  Wyatt shrugged. "Actually, Jonesy was being set up to be stabbed. De Count was cracking from battle fatigue, so that gave Bomber Command the excuse to remove him from the plane. Jonesy came aboard ostensibly to replace De Count as mid-upper gunner, but he secretly assumed Ack-Ack's position in the rear turret and was killed there."

  "Why not use De Count?"
/>   "He was cracking and unpredictable. The crewmen knew his voice. And it's much easier to stick a knife into a stranger than it is a friend."

  "Why choose Jonesy?"

  "He was expendable. His life was in the toilet, and he would hardly be missed. If Bomber Command was going to kill off one of their own, why not choose a miserable wretch?"

  Rutger scowled. "Your theory holds up. With Ack-Ack gone from the rear turret, the Junkers 88 could fire at will. No danger of hitting the Judas goat. No worry about return fire.

  When the attack began, Ack-Ack could raise the alarm, shooting the mid-upper guns away from the night fighter."

  "As the Ace was going down, the pilot ordered the crew to bail out. Ack-Ack—wearing a gunner's Taylorsuit just like Jonesy's—scrambled to the front of the plane, shed the equipment masking his face, and jumped out through the forward hatch. In his pocket, he carried the handle of the knife."

  "I like it," the German said. "The bomber crashed in this valley. If the Nazis had found it, the gunner sprawled dead in the rear turret would have had Ack-Ack's ID. If the conspiracy had somehow leaked at either end, they'd think the Judas agent was killed in the attack or the resulting crash."

  "Meanwhile, if Ack-Ack met a crewman in a POW camp, he could claim he'd bailed out by the rear hatch. And if a mate had spied him in his forward escape, he could have said both gunners had switched positions so he could work on the interrupter gear."

  "Ironically, the landslide buried the Ace, which prevented the Nazis from finding the plane," said Rutger.

  "What happened to the Judas package, no one knows. The British disowned the mission for the sake of morale at Bomber Command. All that lived on was rumor—until now."

  Rutger withdrew a hip flask from his pants. "Schnapps?" he asked, unscrewing the cap and handing the flask across.

  Wyatt took a swig and passed it back.

  "Well, we have a book, my friend," Rutger said. "We know the identity of the Judas goat."

  "I think we know more than that."

  "What?"

  "We know who Judas was, too."

  TIGHT SQUEEZE

  LONDON

  "Heaven on Earth" was the theme of the paintings on the walls of the Art Historian's London gallery and dealer's shop, a commercial satellite of his headquarters in New York. No prices defiled the artworks. That would be gauche. If you have to ask, you can't afford to buy it and you don't deserve to own it. Instead, these glorious bits of heaven were sold by secret bid. People would pay through the nose to escape from hell on earth by gazing at these uplifting visions in their extravagant homes.

  In the realm of divine art, the depth of your pockets counts.

  You can't have your own private Vatican on a shoestring budget.

  So what does heaven look like?

  To one side of the Art Historian hung New Jerusalem. The heavenly city, the size of the moon, was made of see-through gold and precious stones, as it was in Revelation 21. No need for the sun when the glory of God shone through, casting off a rainbow of dazzling colors. Its water crystal clear, the River of Life flowed from the throne of Christ. The faithful at his feet would spend eternity listening to the lessons he would share. To augment the aura of this heavenly vision, the artist had mixed the paint with prisms that flashed rainbows if the light was right.

  On the other side of the dying man hung The Tree of Life.

  Here, there was no death, crying, mourning, or pain. The eyes of the blind could see; the ears of the deaf could hear. The lame could leap, and the mute could shout for joy. Because all were pure creations, the rules of physics were gone. People could dance through locked doors and travel anywhere. With hate, grief, and trouble removed, love, joy, and peace reigned supreme.

  Eating was pleasure, not necessity, and in this new Garden of Eden there grew a tree of life that bore twelve kinds of fruit each month. Shame equaled sin, so the fig leaves were no more, and the artist had rendered each naked body in erotic detail.

  This was the painting the Art Historian swiveled his chair to face.

  You'd think that with that to look forward to—instead of this blood disease, with its symptoms of fatigue, weakness, weight loss, bone pain, enlarged organs, and anemia—the Art Historian would yearn for the rejuvenation of heaven. But he had too much money in the here and now, and his faith in the afterlife wasn't strong enough to chance everything on a single roll of the dice. That's why he wanted to find the Holy Grail, even if he had to sell his soul to grab it.

  A bird in the hand . . .

  Before flying to Germany for the resurrection of the Ace, Lenny Jones had emailed the surviving crewmen and the relatives of the dead to say that he was bringing his grandfather's archive with him. On the night Balsdon was gutted by the Judas chair, the Legionary had found that email among the navigator's papers. Balsdon's archive recorded his suspicion that Jones was the double agent. Not only was Jonesy new to the crew, but he was also one of the three who never came home.

  Wrath.

  Ack-Ack.

  Jonesy.

  Earlier on in the same day that Wyatt, Liz, and Sweaty arrived in Germany, the Legionary—pretending to be a reporter—had greeted the real Lenny Jones at the airport.

  Lenny told his soon-to-be killer that he was a stranger to the others. The Legionary clubbed him on the way to the hotel, then stored the body in the trunk to dump later. Because there was nothing in Trent Jones's archive to confirm Balsdon's suspicion that the mid-upper gunner was the Judas agent, the Legionary had assumed Lenny's identity and met the others the following day. When it turned out that none of them had brought archives of their own to Germany, the priest and the Art Historian abandoned the ploy. That's when Lenny's body was dumped in the river and left to float downstream, its face pulverized by hammer blows to hamper identification. Having left a secret note for Sweaty at his hotel, the Legionary and the Art Historian had trekked to London and waited for the old airman to join them.

  "Did you tell the others?" was the first question the Legionary had asked.

  "Against my better judgment, no," said Sweaty "What makes you think Jonesy was the Judas agent? And why the cloak-and-dagger routine to get me here?"

  "I doubt you'd voice it in public—not with the others there—but I think you suspect that my granddad was the secret agent."

  "Your note said you have proof."

  The Legionary introduced him to the Art Historian.

  "I have proof," said the older man. "A client offered to sell it to me at my gallery. It's a photograph of Trent Jones in a Nazi uniform. To check its authenticity, I traced Lenny to Germany and phoned him night before last."

  "So that's why you left?" said Sweaty.

  The Legionary nodded. "You're the last surviving member of the Ace' s crew. I was told the photograph is grainy and could be a fake. My mother was too young to remember her dad, so I need your confirmation if I'm to go public with my granddad's secret identity. If you can't say it's him, the puzzle remains."

  "Show me the photo," said Sweaty.

  "It's in my safe," said the dealer. "I don't know why Balsdon was killed, but I don't want to be next. I've kept this strictly need-to-know: Lenny and you."

  "Where's the safe?"

  "My gallery. Central London."

  "Come on," the Legionary had said, picking up Sweaty's suitcase. "Let's have a look. Then I'll buy you lunch."

  So now the Art Historian sat at his George III mahogany partner's desk, exhausted from his trip to the airport. People bustled to and fro on the street in front of the gallery. The sign on the door informed customers he was closed, but the dying man kept watch all the same.

  The Art Historian listened.

  But he couldn't hear shrieks from below.

  The London under London was like a living organism.

  From Roman times, its arteries had borne the city's fluids, its lungs had enabled it to breathe, its bones had given support, its muscles had endowed strength, its nerves had transmitted signals,
and its bowels had disposed of wastes. Those infrastructures were long-forgotten rivers, underground railways, tunnels and tubes, pipes and passages, neo-gothic sewers, crypts and cellars—like this vault—that twisted and turned, layer on layer, through the netherworld of Hades or hell.

  There was a constant hum of noise. The gurgling of water from taps and flushed toilets. The whoosh of underground trains snaking from station to station. The fzzzzz of electrical pulses surging through billions of wires. During the Blitz of the early 1940s, frightened Londoners had huddled in this dank, murky bomb shelter beneath the gallery like slaves in the hold of a ship while Hitler's Luftwaffe rained firebombs down on their homes.

  Now, all it harbored was a captive old man.

  Another turn of the screw . . .

  Another crack of bones . . .

  Sweaty was transported from this purgatory of pain back to the Second World War. Once more, his head was sheathed in a leather helmet and oxygen mask, and he seemed to be strapped into his wireless operator's seat, except that his arms and legs were tied. Somehow, this chair had been jettisoned from the Ace and had landed in the tube, bringing Sweaty face to face with that obnoxious wartime creation of London Transport—smug, sanctimonious "Billy Brown of London Town."

  This same poster had taunted Sweaty during the war, when he and Balls had railed it down to London on a break to binge in bars and chat up girls. Instead, an air raid had forced them to scramble into the underground with droves of weary Londoners, each person paying one and a half pence for a tube ticket to save his life. With suitcases to pillow their heads, hundreds of poor wretches stretched along the tracks, eating from shopping baskets or sipping from bottles of milk and ginger pop as they tried to ignore the stench of plugged latrines.

  Subconsciously, these cave dwellers feared being buried alive, for all had heard of the bomb that exploded above Balham Station, bursting a water main that drowned sixty-odd people.

  In a pit, reduced to raw survival, what could be more intolerable than Billy Brown of London Town? In placards plastered everywhere, that despicable cartoon character dogged these fearful people with exhortations delivered in insufferable verse.