Mark of the Devil

by William Kerr

  Kapow! “Damn!” A bullet thudded into the door as Matt dove through the opening and slammed it shut. Two more bullets, one into and through the door, the other chinking against stone. Almost immediately, he rammed into something and went sprawling. “Jesus Christ!” he cried, biting his lip to counteract the pain in his shin. He reached out and felt handles leading to what? A wheelbarrow! Matt pulled himself to his feet, grabbed both handles and, in the dark, wedged the barrow against the door.

  “Light, gotta be a light,” Matt muttered to himself as, from outside, a voice in broken German, angry yet controlled, rattled off instructions. He found it. A switch next to the door. With a flick, a dull yellow light filled the room from a bulb on a cord hanging from the ceiling.

  With the sound of fists and shoulders pounding against the door, he pivoted around, looking, searching. The room was filled with gardening tools: gasoline-powered blowers and weed trimmers, shovels, hedge clippers. There were large bags labeled Kunstdünger which, from the graphics on the side, he knew had to be fertilizer; plastic containers labeled Insektenpulver—insect powder; and a shelf lined with bottles of Unkrautvertilgungsmittel—weed killer. Thank God for pictures. At the rear of the room was an undersized archway and another door. He grabbed the door’s handle, pulled, and found himself at the entrance to a tunnel, literally a black hole, leading deeper into the bowels of the monument. Another way out? But he desperately needed a weapon, something to fight with, whether in the darkness of the room and tunnel, or outside if he could find the way.

  Partially hidden by the bags of fertilizer was a rake, its long wooden handle leading to a row of twelve 2-inch teeth about 12 to 15 inches wide. Next to the rake, hanging from a hook on the wall, was a short-handled scythe. Looking quickly over his shoulder, Matt could see the door and wheelbarrow give a little each time someone shoved a shoulder against it. Only a few more seconds and…

  Memorizing the lay of the room and the way to the tunnel opening, Matt grabbed the rake and scythe and pocketed a bottle of weed killer. Why the weed killer, he didn’t really know, unless it was to throw at one of the hunters. With his body facing the entrance to the tunnel, he swung the rake, smashing the light bulb, and moved forward to the steady sound of men cursing and shoving against the door. Inch-by-inch, the edge of the wheelbarrow scraped against the concrete as it gradually yielded to the unrelenting pressure.

  With the scythe and rake in his left hand, he ran along the tunnel, the fingers of his right hand constantly seeking and touching the wall for both support and guidance through the darkness. After what seemed forever, the tunnel ended at a T-shaped intersection. Which way? Not knowing if the tunnel extended to his left, he followed his right hand around the corner, coming to an abrupt stop as he heard the door give and men rush into the storage room.

  The sudden glow of flashlights coming on behind him seemed to crawl down the tunnel in his direction. It was, however, enough light for him to see a flight of rusty iron steps leading up to an equally rusty metal trapdoor, its two sides bolted on the underside by only a slender metal rod running through two metal horseshoe clamps.

  “Thank you, God,” he murmured as he climbed, two steps at a time, to the top, jerked the rod from the clamps, and pushed open one side of the door. Chilled night air struck him in the face. He was at the base of the main monument that held up the statues. Behind him, he could hear orders shouted and men running through the tunnel. He knew he had to move.

  Throwing the rake and scythe ahead of him and ignoring the clamor their metal made against stone, he pushed up from the steps. With one knee on the stone surface he was ready to stand, when a hand suddenly grabbed his ankle and yanked backwards. He kicked out, but the hand refused to let go. Then two hands. A man’s voice shouted in German, and he knew exactly what the words meant: “I’ve got him!”

  Still kicking, Matt twisted his body until his backside was against the cold stone of the monument. Jerking the bottle of weed killer from his pocket, he ripped away the cap and shouted, “Not yet, asshole,” and sloshed the liquid in the man’s face.

  The man grabbed for his eyes, crying, “Meine Augen! Meine Augen!” At the same time, Matt kicked with both feet, hitting the man’s hands and face with the heel of his shoe and sending him crashing backwards down the stairs.

  “One down, four to go,” Matt said automatically as he threw the bottle of weed killer down the stairs and slammed the metal door shut as hard as he could. Grabbing the rake and scythe, he surged up a flight of steps and through a large, rectangular opening into the base of the monument. Some 30 feet above stood the bronze Kaiser Wilhelm, his horse, and the winged lady, but Matt had no intention of joining them. This is where he would make his stand, however it might end.

  Moving quickly to the center of the room, its ceiling at least 12 feet above his head, Matt surveyed his surroundings. The space was over 30 feet in length and approximately 25 feet wide. Behind him were three rectangular openings, 10 feet high by at least 25 feet wide, through which he could see the tops of trees and the lights of Koblenz’ central city. To his left were four more huge openings. Through those, he could see the Mosel River and intermittent car lights crossing the river’s two bridges to and from the northern part of the city. Dead ahead was the junction of the Mosel and Rhine. The far bank gave way to a campground, its streetlights reflecting off rows of trailers and recreational vehicles. Finally, to his right were four entranceways, the moonlit Rhine, and the floodlit walls of the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress stretching along the far hills.

  He wondered, If four hunters remain, which way will they come? Will I hear them? Possibly; possibly not, considering the sound of traffic still moving along the city’s main arteries and an occasional siren in the distance. As far as anyone coming to his rescue, he knew he could forget it. He was on his own.

  Bending low so as not to create a silhouetted target of opportunity against city lights, he ran as rapidly as he could between stone walls separating the five-foot-wide openings, quickly noting steps leading up on only the two sides facing the rivers. Which side would they take? The Mosel or the Rhine? Or both at the same time? He had to decide which to defend first. The side with the deepest shadows would provide him the best cover. Wanting to hear his own voice, he looked to his right and said, “The Rhine.”

  With the scythe’s blade slipped beneath his belt, he grasped the rake and edged behind one of the stone walls separating the two central entranceways on the Rhine River side and waited. He counted the seconds: “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…” To his surprise, he heard whispers on the steps below. He watched, waiting for shadows to appear, stretched long by lights from across the river. One, then two shadows moved up the steps.

  One shadow disappeared, apparently moving around to the next entrance. The other shadow grew larger, stretching across the floor of the room as it moved to the edge of the first opening.

  As that shadow reached the top step, Matt jumped forward and swung the rake at head-height. The impact of metal tines against flesh and bone created a wet thunking sound like hitting a ripe cantaloupe. Ignoring the man’s cries and knowing the second man would be attacking from the rear, Matt jerked the rake backwards, pulling the man headfirst into the room. With the rake’s teeth embedded in the left side of the man’s face and throat, the teeth ripped free, opening a raw swath of bone, flesh, and blood.

  Matt immediately threw the rake aside, whipped the scythe from his belt, and spun on his heel as the second man’s arm and pistol came around the corner of the second entrance. Before the man could fire, the scythe’s curved blade sliced down through the wrist, sending hand and pistol flying through the air and landing in the middle of the floor. The man looked at his wrist, stunned at first, then screamed. Holding his arm, he staggered halfway down the steps before stumbling and falling headfirst to the monument’s lower level.

  Refusing to allow himself the luxury of rest, Matt darted toward the pistol, scooped it up, and pried the hand
and fingers from the handle and trigger; then he rolled along the floor. At the same time, he squeezed off four rapid shots at the silhouette rising up through one of the openings on the Mosel side of the monument. Except for the shots, there was no sound, no cry of pain, no gasp for breath. Just a silhouette as it folded forward and dropped to the floor.

  As Matt lay panting on the stone floor, the pistol still pointed at the opening, a voice from farther down the steps called, “A most impressive display, Mr. Berkeley. It appears we’ve underestimated your abilities.”

  “Fuck off, sonofabitch!”

  Soft laughter rose from somewhere outside. “You win this time, Mr. Berkeley, but we will meet again, I promise. Until then, Auf Wiedersehen.” The man’s words drifted away on the breeze rising from the rivers below.

  Matt got to his feet and stood for a moment, legs shaking with fatigue, body shuddering as he realized how close to death he had come. It was the voice, however, that froze him in place. The words had been English; the accent, American. He’d heard it before, but where?

  And then he remembered. The turnout near Wiesbaden on the Autobahn. The man in the black Volvo. “I’ll be damned!”

  The sound of sirens grew louder and nearer. It died just beyond the trees and buildings he’d passed on his way in search of safety. Someone had finally alerted the police about the taxi, but would they come as far as the Deutsches Eck? He had to hurry.

  After scrubbing the pistol, rake, and scythe handles with dirt at the rear of the monument to destroy fingerprints, Matt threw everything as far out into the Rhine as he could. Knowing there was no evading his responsibility to Richter, and with story prepared, he made his way toward the already frenzied scene in front of the hotel. Breaking into a field of car lights illuminating the area, he saw the bullet-riddled taxi had been pulled back from the line of crushed shrubs and now rested against the curb. With an exaggerated stagger, he moved forward as though in a daze. Almost to the taxi and its badly crushed hood and grillwork, he called out, “Eddy. Where’s Eddy?”

  With his eyes on two policemen who turned and started in his direction with their weapons drawn, Matt misjudged the height of the curb. Suddenly he was falling. He reached for support, but there was only the blur of something metallic before his forehead smashed into the taxi’s crumpled front fender. With an instant flash of pain, his world turned blood-red, then black.

  Matt gradually regained consciousness inside a moving ambulance. His head was splitting as a medical technician dabbed medicine on a knot on his forehead that felt like it was the size of a baseball. “Ouch!” The wound burned as if it had been smacked with a branding iron. Not only had he tripped on something, a really stupid thing to do, but he’d nearly killed himself in the process. He wanted to touch the injury, get an idea how large it really was, but found both arms and legs held down by straps.

  Flexing arms and legs against the restraints, he complained to the technician, “Hey, man, what the hell?”

  The technician looked at him and asked, “American?”

  “Yeah, but why the straps?”

  “For your safety only. You might have a concussion.”

  Matt took a deep breath and tried to relax, until, for the first time, he saw a policeman sitting at the foot of the gurney on which he was lying. He nodded and tried to smile, but the policeman remained stone-faced, his right hand resting on the butt of a pistol holstered at his side. From that point on, things went from already bad to worse.

  KRANKENHAUS MARIENHOF was the sign over the double doors through which he was wheeled. Krankenhaus? His rattled brain searched through the relatively limited German vocabulary he possessed, but the only translation he could come up with was crazy house. It was, however, the sight of people bleeding, coughing, moaning, and hurting, as well as men and women in scrubs with stethoscopes draped around their necks, that made him realize he was being whisked through a hospital emergency room.

  The fact that the policeman was still at his side didn’t help his frame of mind, nor did the doctor joining them add to his confidence level. The man looked old enough to be, at best, in his freshman year of pre-med. The doctor took the front end of the gurney and pushed through a door marked “DER RÖNTGENSTRAHL (X-ray).”

  After a half-dozen X-rays, a large piece of antibiotic-smeared gauze placed on his forehead, a doctor’s warning to get some rest, and a cashier chewing him out for paying the bill in a combination of German marks and dollars, he was finally released. As he was to learn, however, the long night and now early morning were far from over.

  Following release from the hospital, he took a trip under armed guard to the local police station. In a sparsely furnished, windowless room, lights pointed directly into his eyes while two unsympathetic detectives reeking of cigarettes got in his face. They grilled him for a good six hours. Why was he in Koblenz? How did he know Eduard Richter? What had he and Richter been doing that night? Who shot at the taxi? What did they look like? Could it have been the Red Army faction trying to kill the famous yet liberal Professor Richter? Or equally farfetched to Matt, was al-Qaeda trying to assassinate him, an American? Where had he been since the shooting? Did he know Richter was dead? Did he know about the killings at the Deutsches Eck monument? Same questions, over and over again. Same answers, all truthful except for the classified files at the Federal Archives and what happened some 30 feet beneath the statue of Kaiser Wilhelm and his horse.

  After questioning, the authorities stripped Matt of his bloodstained jacket and trousers to determine whether, in addition to that of Eduard Richter or the taxi driver, the blood on his clothes matched that of any or all of three Deutsches Eck corpses resting in das Leichenhaus, the city morgue. Finally, they let him go with an angry warning: “If you leave Koblenz without our authorization, we will send the whole fucking German army after you.” At least, that was Matt’s take on what he heard.

  So much for going home.

  CHAPTER 25

  Thursday, 25 October 2001

  For two days Matt sat at the same table on his hotel room balcony overlooking the Rhine, his forehead sporting a white piece of gauze and two crossing strips of adhesive. His only contacts with the outside world had been a phone call to Hannah Richter to express his sorrow for her husband’s death and a call to Ashley. After several attempts, he had finally reached Ashley on the new cell phone she’d bought that, for some unexplained reason, seemed to work only half the time. She had blown him away with news she was now employed by Antiquity Finders, Inc. Assistant to the director, no less, who just happened to be Henry Shoemaker’s wife. “Are you crazy?” he had blurted. “My God, Ashley, they find out who you are, they’ll kill you.” To that she’d replied, “Thanks a hell of a lot, Matt. You really know how to make a girl feel appreciated.” Of course, he hadn’t told her about Richter’s death and his encounter on the Deutsches Eck. He only mentioned that things hadn’t gone as quickly as he’d planned.

  There was, however, a visit by two police investigators, who asked the same questions and got the same answers as before. He had to smile, thinking of the room service maids and restaurant waiters whose eyes spoke their wariness and who kept their distance. Finally the hotel’s concierge, for a “modest fee” plus cost, had replaced the blue blazer he’d surrendered to the police with one from a local haberdashery.

  Matt watched a white, red-striped river cruiser, the name MS Italia on its bow, edge alongside one of the many piers dotting the western bank of the Rhine. Already, its passengers were lined up on the main deck, chomping at the bit to get ashore and enrich the pockets of local vendors. Taking another sip of coffee, he turned back to the day-old newspaper. His reading was slow, but the headlines and pictures on the front page were graphic enough for anyone to get the meaning.

  The death of Eduard Richter and the taxi driver, Gunther Schmidt, along with photographs of the two men when they were much younger and a picture of the totally destroyed taxi, bullet holes included, covered the top half of page one of D
as Koblenz Rheinpfalz. The bottom half was devoted to the Kaiser Wilhelm monument on the Deutsches Eck with three greenish-black body bags lying at the base of the monument. One victim was described to have four bullet holes in the chest and abdomen; the other two, badly mutilated, both assumed to have bled to death.

  It had taken some looking, but on page four of the local news section was the admittance to St. Josef Hospital of a man during the early morning hours with badly burned eyes, supposedly from weed killer, and a broken arm sustained from a fall down a flight of stairs. There was, however, no mention of where the “accident” had occurred or how it had happened.

  Matt checked his watch. Even though he’d been cleared to leave the country by the police, he’d promised Hannah he would be at the memorial service for Eddy.

  Even before he pushed through the heavy, intricately carved double doors of the ninth-century Basilica of St. Kastor, Matt heard the organ music, its tones dirge-like, reminding him of Wagner’s Siegfried, of Siegfried’s death and funeral procession. He hesitated, not wanting to say goodbye to an old friend, especially since Eddy’s death had been caused by that friendship. But Matt knew he had no choice.

  Pushing the door inward, he walked along the center aisle as softly as he could. The tile floor’s pattern of light brown and mahogany-colored diamonds led him forward through the sanctuary, its narrowness actually an optical illusion created by the high vaulted, richly decorated ceiling and the stark whiteness of walls and double line of supporting pillars. The sanctuary was more than half full of friends, colleagues, and family members. As he neared the last of the unoccupied pews, he thought he saw the back of Hannah’s head in the front row, and what appeared to be three distinct family groups with her. And he remembered. Eddy’s two sons and daughter, their wives, husband, and children. Damn! Their father dead, along with Sam Gravely, a man with the Smithsonian Institute, and a taxi driver. Two friends and two complete strangers, each trying to help, each sacrificing his life. And for what? For Matt Berkeley and a possible fool’s errand. All his fault. “God, forgive me,” he whispered, and lifted his face toward the vaulted ceiling.