by John Dalmas
Macurdy raised both palms, pumped plasma charges toward the approaching men, then flattened himself against the ground, peering through the roadside grass. All four were down, dead.
It took a moment, as if the troopers left behind hadn't fully grasped what they'd seen. There'd been no gunshots, and in the afternoon sunlight, they shouldn't have spotted the darting plasma charges. Certainly not at that distance. Then a voice called from the forest: "Lieutenant! Are you all right?"
When there was no answer, a tentative rifle shot was fired, then another. When that brought no response, they let loose an intense flurry of gunfire, lasting three or four seconds.
After that it was quiet again. It had to be damned spooky for them; presumably they couldn't see Edouard or Berta any longer either. For a long half minute he didn't move, then turned onto his side and now cast a separate cloak over Lotta, lying beside him in the grass. "Lotta," he said, "do not get up. They cannot see you if you stay where you are, and the bullets won't hit you if you lie flat." He hoped.
Again he got up, and again no one fired. Slowly, watchfully, he started toward the woods, but had gone only about a dozen yards when four more troopers dashed from the sheltering trees, staying low, well dispersed, to hit the ground a few yards into the field.
At that same instant, Macurdy hit the ground too. A moment later the four were on their feet again, this time covered by a flurry of gunfire from the woods. When it stopped, he raised his head. A moment later the four were up and dashing another few yards, again with covering fire. This time Macurdy kept his head up enough to watch. The fire came from four men, in the forest somewhat off to his right, and having drawn no return fire, they didn't retire so completely behind their sheltering tree trunks when they finished.
Again the four on the ground dashed forward, bolder now, covering ten or twelve yards before hitting the ground. Again they had covering fire from the woods. The instant the covering fire stopped, Macurdy rose to his knees, pumping silent plasma charges toward the men who'd shot, then dropped prone again. At almost the same moment, the men on the ground got up and dashed forward once more, as if they hadn't noticed his return fire.
It was then he became aware of a sound he'd been ignoring. A plane was circling at a little distance. Still his attention focused on the men in front of him. Their dash not accompanied by covering fire, they lay for perhaps half a minute before one raised himself cautiously to an elbow, then a knee. When nothing happened, he looked back toward the trees—and shouted. Then Macurdy stood, and pumped out half a dozen more plasma charges. The man fell; the others moved not at all, or only twitched.
The plane's engine was louder. Macurdy started back to the others, somehow certain that the plane was dangerous. "Berta!" he shouted, "take Lotta and run to the forest! Now! I will bring Edouard!"
Confused, she rose only to her knees. The forest was where the danger had been. He gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet. "The forest is safe now! They are all dead there! The plane is the threat now!"
Berta did run then, only pausing to pull Lotta to her feet, and they ran hard toward the woods. Macurdy bent, lifted the marionette-jointed Edouard, and struggled him over a shoulder, then started after them. Now exertion showed him what he'd overlooked: the cost in energy of firing so many plasma charges. He stumbled, nearly collapsing beneath Edouard's weight, then staggered on. Through the aircraft's engine noise, he heard its machine gun hosing bullets, and ten yards in front of him, dirt and asphalt spurted. He stopped, nearly fell, heard the engine yowl as the plane banked sharply. Again he started running, heavily, his lungs heaving as if he'd raced a hundred yards with his burden.
And heard Lotta running back to him, crying, "Herr Montag! Herr Montag!"
Dismayed, he shouted, telling her to go back.
* * *
Hands on its sides, Krieger leaned out the door, watching the troopers dash forward, hit the ground. From his vantage he couldn't see the others deliver covering fire, but had no doubt they did. They knew—at least he'd told them—that they might be unable to see the man they had to deal with, an American in a khaki jumpsuit. But he hadn't realized the man might be able to confer invisibility on the others. He wondered if his troopers realized their unseen targets were lying prone.
After a few seconds the soldiers were on their feet again, sprinting, cast themselves on the ground, and now, as the plane banked, he could see the others deliver covering fire—and fall!
His consternation almost choked him. "Closer!" He shouted into his throat mike. "Quickly! I need to lay down accurate fire." Then jerking the door gunner out of his way, he took the gun over and set himself. From behind it he had a smaller field of view than before, but as the plane banked, he saw Montag running, now with a body over his shoulder. Staggering; he must be wounded! Krieger laid down fire in front of him, his goal to stop instead of kill. Alive, Montag was valuable for what he knew, what he could do.
As he fired, he saw Montag stop, actually barely pause, then lumber on again. The plane banked steeply, but Krieger kept his prey in view. In seconds the American would reach the forest, unless he killed him. Krieger pivoted the gun on its mount; he dared not spare the man again.
He never noticed the child running toward Montag.
It was then the pain struck, like an explosion in his skull. With a bellow, a roar, Krieger let go the gun, clasping both hands to his temples, and unconscious, plunged headfirst out the door.
In the cockpit, hornets attacked the pilot, hornets large as his thumb, swarming about his head, stabbing face, eyes, hands with liquid fire. He roared, raging, holding the stick with one hand, swatting and snatching with the other. The pain was excruciating....
* * *
Macurdy felt Lotta's fear, her desperation, and fell to his knees, suddenly too weak to stand. Heard but didn't see the plane crash and explode on the far side of the river. Lotta ran to him and flung her thin arms around his neck, sobbing wildly. "I couldn't help it!" she cried. "I couldn't help it! They were going to kill you! They were going to kill you!" He hugged her, patted her, telling her it was all right, all right, that it was over with. Then Berta was there too, sobbing, her arms around both of them.
It seemed to Macurdy he couldn't get up. How many charges had he fired in those few minutes? In that one minute alone? More than there'd been targets. Then it occurred to him that when he'd picked Edouard up, the man was still alive. His aura had shown it. But he might not be for long, unless something was done for him. It took a major effort to lift him again, this time in his arms. Slowly, Macurdy staggered with him to the forest, then carried him a hundred yards farther, to get well away from the road.
* * *
He sent Berta to hide by the roadside and watch; if anyone came, she was to return and tell him. Nearby farmers might well have heard the gunfire—almost surely someone had—but how long it might be before the authorities arrived, he could only guess. He didn't think local police would investigate that much gunfire. Surely no fanner would. There'd be soldiers at Feldkirch, manning the border checkpoint, but surely not many, and probably in their forties and older. Landsturm, perhaps Volkssturm. The tiny nation of Liechtenstein, more or less a Swiss protectorate, was hardly a threat to Hitler's Third Reich.
Edouard's aura reflected the severity of his wounds. He'd been hit twice. One bullet had punctured the lower lobe of his right lung and collapsed the pleurum. The other had entered the lower abdomen on the right side, and exited his back on the left without hitting the liver or either kidney. Macurdy didn't know the details, of course, only that no major blood vessels had been ruptured, or Edouard would already have bled to death. But he assumed the intestine had been perforated, and infection would follow.
He also knew that Edouard could hardly have gotten those wounds rolling toward the ditch. Perhaps in the scramble he'd crawled, trying to shield Berta.
With a shivering Lotta beside him, Macurdy worked on Edouard beneath a cloak, manipulating energy threads with mind
, eyes, and fingers, and bit by bit the threads stayed where he wanted them. After 20 minutes, Berta trotted up, whispering that a truck, a kind of van, was coming up the road from the west. Without speaking, Macurdy motioned her to kneel beside himself and Lotta, within the perimeter of his cloak. Then he continued manipulating and visualizing while they watched.
Visualized not only Edouard whole and well. Visualized white cells and antibodies, like microscopic cartoon soldiers rampant in Edouard's bloodstream, vaporizing germs in tiny black uniforms. For it was not enough simply to save his life. He had to create enough healing that Edouard could survive being carried to the border and across. It was a challenge he didn't doubt he'd win.
Distant voices reached them, barely, but he ignored them. A second truck arrived. Dead soldiers were loaded on it and covered by a tarp; then it left. Minutes later the Gestapo van followed it. Macurdy continued, till he'd done what he could for the moment.
It was only then he realized that during his efforts—perhaps because of his efforts—his energy had returned, and his confidence. Pulling the large quilted horse blankets from his pack, he helped Berta wrap Edouard in them. Then he knelt by his three co-fugitives. "I'll be back soon," he said. "I'm going to get something to eat. Talk to him. Tell him to get well. Tell him—tell him you need him."
* * *
Macurdy trotted easily through the dusk of early evening, passing two farms before he came to one without a dog. Never hesitating, he entered the chicken house, and in the midst of squawking flapping chickens, wrung three necks and left carrying supper, unseen by the farmer who stormed from his back door with a shotgun. Let a polecat or fox take the blame, he thought. Tomorrow night I'll come and get that wheelbarrow by your woodpile, and leave a few reichsmarks by your door.
* * *
After a supper of creek water and scorched chicken, Macurdy gave Berta a lesson in concealment spells. She was short on confidence, but before they stopped, she'd succeeded in making herself—obscure. Easy to overlook. He told her to work on it, that she'd be responsible for Lotta and for foraging. He'd be busy wheeling Edouard to Liechtenstein.
Then he scraped together a bed of conifer needles and lay down. Waiting for sleep, he examined the day's wild climax. He did not doubt that someone in the plane had seen through his cloaks, had guided the soldiers and fired the machine gun.
He also knew what had saved him, knew with certainty. The night before, Edouard had told him that Lotta was "a terror poltergeist." Macurdy had assumed that meant a poltergeist who caused terror, and perhaps it did. But it was her terror that triggered it.
Perhaps in Switzerland, with Berta, she'd lose her need of it. He had no doubt they'd make it there.
PART SIX
May 1945
41
The Schurz Family
Flying over in still another C47, it seemed to Macurdy that Bern, Switzerland must be one of the world's more beautiful cities.
A year earlier he'd been interned there, briefly. Then Colonel Dulles had gotten him released and flown to Algiers, from where he'd returned to London. There he'd learned that a naval vessel on patrol in the Adriatic had picked up a body floating in a life jacket. A very peculiar body—Trosza's. That had been about the time he and MacNab arrived back in London, but word wouldn't find its way to Grosvenor Square for three weeks. When Macurdy had returned from Switzerland, General Donovan had pinned 1st lieutenant's bars on him: He'd not only provided proof positive of the aliens; he'd blown up the schloss, alone.
The promotion hadn't been Macurdy's only surprise. Anna Hofstetter was dating Vonnie Von Lutzow.
With his fluency in German, and experience in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, Macurdy had next been assigned to a project to undermine Hitler's bitter-end "National Redoubt" plan, a plan that never remotely came to pass.
Now the war in Europe was over, and as of 19 June, 1945, Macurdy would officially be stationed in Washington D.C. Until then, he was on leave. With new captain's bars on his collar, and the DSC, silver star, purple heart, jump wings, and combat infantry insignia on his Ike jacket, he could have caught an Air Corps transport to the States via Reykjavik and Gander, and been in Nehtaka five days after leaving London.
Instead he was landing at Bern. There were things he had to check on, had to know. If he flew home without following through, he never would. He was still in Europe; things were still fluid and opportunities available. The chicken-shit specialists hadn't taken over yet, though they were working on it, and this was the time to do what he had to.
He'd already learned how the old 509th had fared. In Belgium it had been in extended heavy combat, and so badly chewed up, instead of replacing the casualties (again), the Pentagon had sent the survivors to other airborne outfits.
A letter from Berta had arrived for him in London at the end of August, 1944. Edouard was out of the hospital, and working in Bern as a janitor, but had been accepted as a lecturer in the University beginning in September. They had married, and begun proceedings to adopt Lotta, who was living with them. They'd been living in a single room, but with Edouard's new position, they'd be able to afford an apartment.
Macurdy had been in France then, and the letter had followed him from London, then followed him again, reaching him at last in mid-September. He hadn't written back for more than a month. When he had, his letter hadn't reached Bern for more than two weeks, and was returned as not deliverable.
He'd heard nothing since.
But the OSS office in Bern had resources. When the Peace was signed, he'd radioed, and they'd easily gotten Edouard's address and phone number for him.
So he phoned from the airport. Berta answered, and sounding delighted, invited him to supper. He suggested instead that they all eat at a restaurant, at his expense, but she insisted. "I am actually quite a good cook," she said. "And while many things are hard to get here, I have learned to do nicely."
Lotta would be home at about 4:30, she said, and Edouard by 6:00. If he could be there at 6:30...
* * *
A taxi delivered him at the curb at 6:34, and putting down the two suitcases he carried, he rang their bell. It was Berta's voice that answered, and Edouard who came down to meet him. Edouard's eyebrows rose at the suitcases.
Macurdy gestured. "A few presents," he said, "mostly for Lotta."
They went upstairs together, neither of them making even small talk. They'd have to get used to each other again, Macurdy decided.
The apartment was on the third floor, at the end of a hallway smelling faintly of varnish and cleaning compound. At first it was Berta who carried the conversation. Lotta had grown and changed in 12 months, but was still shy. By the time they'd finished the custard Berta had made for dessert, Macurdy and Edouard had loosened up and warmed up. Then Lotta, though still less than talkative, brought out almost every possession she had, for Macurdy to see and admire.
Which led him to open one of the suitcases he'd brought, the larger, with things for her. Anna Von Lutzow had helped him shop. Mostly they were dolls and stuffed animals, but there was also a bright orange rain cape and a gold-plated fountain pen. It earned him a hard hug and a kiss on the cheek from Lotta, and moist eyes from Edouard and Berta.
For Berta he'd bought a white nylon blouse—Anna had helped him—and a purse with several compartments; for Edouard a heavy sweater of Scottish wool, and a camera. For the two of them together he'd brought a liter of good cognac, and the suitcases, which they were to keep.
Afterward they sat in the living room and sampled the cognac while they talked. They told him about their new life—neither wanted to return to Germany, despite the end of the war, though "someday we shall visit"—and he told them a bit about his life before the war, leaving out the years in Yuulth, of course, and his first two marriages.
"You seem too young for all that," Edouard said. "I would have guessed your age at, oh, twenty-five perhaps. Although already in Germany I had decided you were older." He cocked an eyebrow. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-one." He'd been tempted to say forty-one, his actual age, but that would require difficult explanations. It occurred to Macurdy that with the secrets he had, close friendships of long duration would be few.
"Remarkable," Edouard said. "Don't you think so, Berta?"
"Yes, remarkable, but somehow I am not surprised." She laughed. "After the things we have seen you do, Herr Macurdy—Curtis—we are not so easily surprised as we might have been."
He didn't stay late. At nine they sent Lotta off to bed. She hugged and kissed Macurdy again before she left. Shortly afterward he phoned for a cab. Before he and Edouard went downstairs to wait, Berta too hugged him, and kissed his cheek.
"We will write to you," she said, "and you must write to us. Because you are Lotta's uncle Curtis, which makes you our brother." She paused. "You were a soldier, but also you were a human being. We have talked of you often. You have our highest respect and admiration."
"Thank you," Macurdy said, feeling awkward. "I am honored. You both have my respect and admiration, and not only because of what you are doing for Lotta."