by Brad Murray
He thrashed and flailed ferociously until he managed to wriggle a hand free from under Josef’s weight. His fingers clasped around Josef’s neck and squeezed. His grip constricted like a vise; tighter and tighter. Josef’s face turned purple, the veins in his neck and forehead bulged. He strained desperately to free himself from Wicker’s grasp. He grabbed Wicker’s wrist in an effort to pull his hand away from his neck but couldn’t. Wicker’s grip was simply too strong. Wheezing, gasping for air, his vision began to go black. Instinctively, Josef let go of the hand that was choking him to death and began pounding Wicker’s face with his fist. The first blow landed squarely on the forehead, but Wicker was undeterred. He was in a sort of psychotic trance, hell-bent on squeezing the life out of Josef. Josef again raised his fist in the air and thrust downward with all the force he had remaining. With a terrible thud he hammered Wicker’s nose, heard the crack of it breaking, and felt the warm spray of blood on his face. Wicker released his grip and grunted in pain. Josef rolled away and clutched his throat, frantically trying to refill his lungs with air. Inhaling with one enormous breath, Josef felt the life that had been abandoning him slowly returning. Both men were on their backs. Josef clutching his throat, sucking for air. Wicker covering his broken nose with his hands, screeching in agony.
With each passing second, Wicker’s concern for his pain lessened, and his intent on killing Josef refocused. With each passing second, Josef’s breath and vision returned, and with it his sense of the gravity of the situation.
The gun. Wicker’s Walther.
Josef shot up, scrambling to locate it. He found it almost immediately - a silver reflection on the ground about 20 feet away. But Wicker was already moving towards it, crawling on all fours, blood oozing from his nose and splattering on the dirt beneath him. In three sprinter’s strides Josef dove, hands outstretched for the weapon. He arrived at the same moment as Wicker, their hands banging together, and the gun was knocked forward out of the reach of either man. The two were once again locked in a death grip; each man knowing if the other reached the gun first, it would be their end.
They rolled in the dirt, their sharp dress uniforms shrouded in dust and speckled with blood. Bodies rolling, fists flaring, elbows and knees thrashing wildly. It was Josef who first gained the upper hand. He was able to get a forearm behind Wicker’s neck and used his leverage to force his broken nose into the ground. Wicker shrieked in agony. Josef saw his opportunity and pushed away from the scrum, lunging for the gun. A surge of exhilaration coursed fiercely through him like a hungry lion about to pounce on its prey. Josef was going to reach the gun. His outstretched hand lowered over the weapon and his fingers tensed in anticipation of grabbing it.
But to Josef’s horror, his momentum stopped suddenly and he fell short, missing the gun entirely. Wicker had grabbed hold of his ankle in mid-air and pulled him backwards, away from the gun. As Josef’s chin dragged over the ground, he watched helplessly as the silver Walther got further and further away. He spun onto his back and caught view of Wicker, whose face was unrecognizably smeared with black dirt that had formed into a grotesque permutation of blood and mud. Josef was on his back with Wicker on his knees towering over him - an unenviable position in a fight to the death. Before Josef could react, a metallic flash shot from Wicker’s hand and thrashed downward in a violent arch. It was followed by two more flashes, all struck within the blink of an eye.
At first, Josef didn’t realize what had happened. But as Wicker lifted the blood-soaked dagger it had become abundantly clear. A terrible searing pain seethed from his gut and from his torso, and the will to fight evaporated. His lungs weren’t working properly and it felt as though a heavy weight had been dropped on his chest. He coughed. And coughed again. The metallic taste of blood passed over his tongue and across his lips. Josef wanted to see the wounds for himself but found he was too weak to lift his head. It was then he knew he had been dealt a fatal blow.
Staring hypnotically into the blue sky, a calming peace came over him. Josef watched the clouds, much as he did when he was a child. He found himself transfixed as the white puffs slowly morphed from shapeless forms into the faces of Ava, of Martha, of Viktor. They smiled down on him, as if willing him to join them in the sky.
Wicker laughed victoriously, his wild eyes wide and unblinking. His teeth were no longer white but crimson, the blood from his broken nose still gushing into his mouth. He leaned forward, sneering as he held the bloody knife in front of Josef’s face. A droplet of crimson fell from it and splattered on Josef’s forehead.
“You should have fled when you had the chance,” he said mockingly. “Why did you return? For this worthless boy?”
Wicker glanced over at Benjamin, who was now sitting up against the brick building. Benjamin had watched helplessly as Wicker pulled the dagger from his waist. He had recoiled at Wicker’s violent thrusts. He was sickened by the dull thudding sound the dagger made when it punctured the Commander over and over again. Still, Benjamin steeled himself, and wiped the tears from his dirt-strewn cheeks. He glared at Wicker as the madman laughed hysterically.
“I am going to enjoy this moment. I have spent many a restless night imagining what it would be like. Wondering what it would feel like. And, I must say, you put up a better fight than I imagined,” said Wicker licking blood from his lips. “But I am happy you fought. It makes it all the more satisfying.”
Another mortar blast thundered in the distance.
“This camp will be chaos soon,” mused Wicker. “The Allies will overrun us and we will be forced to surrender Haasburg. In the natural confusion that accompanies battle, your corpse will simply be one of its many consequences. There will be no one who will attest to the exact cause of your death, nobody who witnessed it. As for me, I will be released from Allied custody in a matter of weeks. The war is all but over and when it is, the Allies will release its prisoners. I’ll be back in Berlin with my wife and children in no time. You will be nothing more to the world than the dead former Commander of Haasburg Concentration Camp; the man who presided over the deaths of thousands of poor, innocent Jews.”
Wicker paused for a moment and studied Josef’s face. He was agitated that Josef’s attention appeared to be on the sky above and not on him. After all, the most satisfying part of his fantasy was to be able to revel in his victory by rubbing Josef’s nose in it. Wicker reared back, palm open, and slapped Josef hard across the face.
“You will die when I am ready for you to die!”
The blow swung Josef’s head to the right, and instead of blue sky, his sights were set on the boy. A delusional grin cracked from Josef’s lips. The boy stood up.
Wicker grabbed Josef by the chin and turned his face back towards him.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
The boy took three silent steps away from the building. He stopped and peered down at the ground at his feet.
“You are not fit to run this camp! You are not fit to wear this uniform!” shouted Wicker. Another explosion rattled, this one louder than any other.
“You are a coward! You are weak! The fact you thought yourself better than a Wicker…” He scoffed. Teeth showing, he raised the dagger over his head with both hands. A few feet away, the boy kneeled, his hand outstretched towards the ground.
“You will die knowing it!” scowled Wicker. “You will die knowing that Hans Wicker was the better man and…”
“Stop!” a little voice cried out. The boy held the Walther in his trembling hands just feet away. It was aimed unsteadily at Wicker’s black heart. Awestruck, Wicker studied the boy for a moment before he lowered the dagger. He regarded the rat, the shit-covered rat boy stood before him pointing a gun – his gun – directly at his chest. He closed his eyes, raised his arms to the heavens, and laughed – the bizarre hyena-like howl of a madman.
“How fitting!” said Wicker, still chuckling, “The Superjunge is here to save the day! How about that, Obersturmbannführer?”
Like the
flip of a switch, the smile on Wicker’s face vanished and was replaced by a countenance of grim severity. Wicker narrowed his eyes and considered the boy.
“Do you know how to use that, Superjunge?” nodding to the pistol. “Have you ever fired a weapon? Killing a man is not easy, no. At least not the first one. After the first, you might find yourself almost - - yearning for it. Like me. Pull that trigger and there is a good chance you will be just like me, just like what you hate most in this world.”
Benjamin’s hands shook more noticeably and Wicker took heart. His face conveyed his hesitation; he couldn’t even look his target in the eye. Instead, his vision seemed focused behind Wicker. Wicker grinned. The boy was weak, just like every other Jew who Wicker had escorted to the gas chamber, despite knowing that each step brought them closer to death, they were too cowardly to do anything about it. The boy wouldn’t be able to pull that trigger, and he would die because of it. Benjamin’s eyes widened and he lowered the weapon.
“What’s wrong Superjunge? Can’t pull that trigger?“ he smiled. “You know I will plunge my dagger deep into your stomach just as I’ve done to the Commander. And yet, you are still too much of a coward to shoot me. Dirty Jew – so predictable, so –“
Wicker lurched upright and his body went stiff. His eyes bulged out of their sockets. At the base of his throat, a terrible gash opened up and a gush of blood spilled from the wound like a fountain. He keeled forward and landed face down on top of Josef.
Jutting out from the back of his neck was the handle of a shiny new Hitler Youth Knife.
Viktor Schwarz and Benjamin Porges stood, mouths agape in disbelief. For a moment there was no sound, it was as if the entire world had stopped. Neither boy breathed, neither blinked. After several seconds, Benjamin moved numbly towards the bodies, bent down, and looked up at Viktor.
“H-Help me, I-I think the Commander is still alive,” said Benjamin softly.
Viktor’s heart skipped, praying it was true. The two boys struggled to remove Wicker’s body, straining to roll the heavy corpse off of Josef. Viktor grabbed his father’s hand; it felt cold. He surveyed the wounds; there was so much blood. He watched for his father’s chest to rise in inhalation; it did not. Viktor’s heart sank; the spark of hope he had felt had all but been extinguished. His head began to spin, the terrible realization that the man he worshipped, the man he aspired to become, was gone. Viktor slumped over his father’s body and wept. Surely this was some terrible nightmare - surely he would soon awaken in his bedroom with his father standing over him – alive and well.
Benjamin searched but could find no words of comfort, instead offering a dirty hand to Viktor’s shoulder, cautiously consoling the Nazi boy. He identified with this boy despite his being on the side of the enemy. After all, his own parents and sister had been murdered in front of him; he understood how indescribably, unspeakably terrible it was.
As he cried into his father’s chest, Viktor imagined him being slowly lowered into the ground. He saw his father lying in an open casket, his dead face getting further and further away as he was lowered into the black depths. He yearned to go with him, for the world above seemed so empty and lonely without him. If only he could rewind time, he thought. If only there was a magic potion that would bring his father back to life. Suddenly, Viktor remembered the conversation Dr. Wagner and his father had earlier in the morning. Viktor lifted his head from his father’s chest, suddenly alive with the realization of hope.
“I have heard about you,” said Viktor. “Dr. Wagner said you are a gift from God. Make my papa alive again! Please!” The tears streamed in torrents down his mottled face. “I will do anything!”
Benjamin stood up, stunned. He didn’t know how to respond.
“You can save him, can’t you?” said Viktor.
Benjamin looked down at the ground and shook his head apologetically. “No. I don’t know how.” He kneeled back down and looked Viktor square in the eye. “My mother. She used to tell me things - before she was shot by the soldiers. She used to say we were all gifts from God. All of us. And what we do with that gift is up to us.”
Benjamin’s eyes twinkled, lost in memory. The details of his mother’s face had come back to him – recalling exactly how she would look at him, the exact sound of her laughter, the precise scent of her skin. And he could hear her voice. It was the first time in months.
“She would say,” continued Benjamin, “‘you can do good with your gift or you can do evil. Which will you choose?’”
Viktor regarded the SS insignias that emblazoned his father’s uniform; the uniform he’d always been so proud of. He thought of the boy who stood next to him, and how he must feel so differently about those very same insignias. Suddenly, a tremendous explosion from the other side of the camp shook the ground beneath them and rattled the boys’ teeth. Immediately there was panicked yelling from inside the camp walls and orders barked out in agitated German. Whistles blew and air raid sirens blared, trumpeting the arrival of the enemy. Benjamin realized he would be safest outside its walls, away from the Allies’ target and amongst the obscurity of the trees. He stood and ran towards the forest. Pausing at the outer row of trees, he turned back to Viktor.
“It gets better,” shouted Benjamin.
Viktor looked back hollowly through distorted tears.
“The hurt gets better. Your father will always be with you. In your dreams.”
Viktor watched in a daze as Benjamin turned and disappeared into the forest. He again lowered his head to his father’s chest, and closed his eyes. Behind him, he vaguely registered the cries of children, but he was too apathetic to lift his head. Shortly after, he heard the squeaking brakes of an automobile, a car door open, and Dr. Wagner bellowing incoherently. A few seconds later, he heard the heartbreaking cries of his mother that would haunt him forever.
14
Two Days Ago - May 27, 2011
“One would think for what they charge they could at least prepare a decent cup of tea,” sneered the old woman.
She tossed the remains from her tea cup over her top floor balcony and onto the manicured hedges below. She paused, anticipating a patronizing retort from her twin brother but, disappointingly, received none. Instead, he gazed out over the veranda in silence, soaking in the breathtaking panoramic view the luxury resort offered. A cool, salty breeze drifted over the veranda’s railing, providing a welcome relief from the warm summer afternoon. The resort’s immaculately landscaped gardens rolled gently to the narrow rocky coastline below; a brilliant contrast of dark green grass sprinkled with flowering brilliance of every imaginable color. A gentle wave from the Balearic Sea rippled lazily against the shoreline and the calls of seagulls frolicking on the rocks provided the soundtrack to the serene setting. El Rey Blanco Resort was a resplendent, glimmering castle, majestically rising up from the eastern Spanish coast; a breathtaking pastel-pink wonder designed in the style of a Tuscan country mansion.
“It’s nearly time for the meeting to reconvene and I have yet to have tea that is tolerable,” she continued. “Do be a dear and ring Maria, won’t you Lars? She will hear about it from me.”
Lars exhaled deeply, irritated by his sister’s grating interruption of his moment of tranquility. “The tea was quite tasty, Letta. I had a cup myself.” He lifted a brown spotted wrist under his nose and narrowed his aging eyes to read the hands of his silver Rolex. “Besides, we don’t have time for such nonsense. The meeting resumes in ten minutes.”
Lars had dealt with his sister’s insufferable disposition for all of his seventy-four years. She was petulant, self-absorbed, and pretentious. But then again, he realized that in many ways so was he. They were born aristocracy, amongst the most powerful and noble families in the world. Lars rose from his deck chair, took a savoring puff from his pipe, and gently twirled his sister in her wheelchair. He straightened his white vest around his midsection, took one last longing look at the sea and pushed the wheelchair from the veranda into the lush suite.
“Let’s take a stroll, shall we, Letta? We must finalize our strategy before this afternoon’s discussions.”
Letta huffed and tugged irritatedly at her white shawl, which she wore despite the warmth of the afternoon. “Fine – but I still require my afternoon tea. Please make certain Maria personally delivers it during the meeting.”
The pair rolled forward at a leisurely pace away from their suite and down a grand corridor. They strategized in hushed tones, moving across the black and white checkerboard marble that lined the floors, and passed by the well-appointed antiques and a collection of paintings from the Spanish Golden Age that adorned the walls. They descended to the ground floor via elevator, and moved through the palatial lobby. The lobby walls dripped with gilded crown molding and the finest dark, rich woods ornamented the staircases and bannisters. Beautiful silk fabrics, tapestries, and antique furniture only added to the opulence. Dutiful white gloved butlers and chambermaids were at their guests’ beck and call and they politely addressed each guest by name as they passed.
El Rey Blanco was a palace fit for kings - and kings it accommodated. Tucked securely away in a heavily guarded wing of the resort, modern day kings planned their futures, as well as the futures of those they ruled. Lars and Letta entered the foyer of the wing, encountering a host of security guards, who promptly bowed and cleared a path for their passage without the inconvenience of an identification check. After all, proof of identity is not necessary for kings.
The siblings had attended nearly forty of the Alicante’s annual conferences and were its most senior members. Each year, the three day event took place in a different location, from Spain to Brazil, to the U.S. and India. Never in the same place twice, always three days in duration, subject to the most stringent security and confidentiality measures. Discussion of any meeting topic outside conference walls was strictly forbidden. Conversations with any member of the media, other than those controlled by the Alicante, were banned. Spouses of the Alicante were not allowed to make the trip – for they tended to regard the event as a vacation – and were therefore a distraction.