by By Jon Land
“The important thing,” the doctor picked up, “is that your baby’s present good condition should not give you false hope. I’m afraid it’s not going to remain that way for long.” When Danielle made no reply, he started for the door. “I’ll look in on you in the morning. Get some rest.”
“What did you tell him?” Danielle demanded, after Dr. Barr had left the room.
“To do the sonogram.”
“Nothing else?
“I didn’t have to. He knows. He saw it on my face in his office yesterday. Yours, too.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you to come with me.”
“So you can go through this alone?”
“I’m used to it. Can’t you see this is hard enough for me, as it is?”
“It would be even harder alone,” Ben persisted stubbornly. “I don’t give up easy, Danielle.”
“I’m thankful for that. Really, I am, Ben.”
“But sometimes giving up is not the worst thing a person can do.”
She turned onto her side away from him. “Why don’t you just go check out Abasca Machines?”
“Because it’s in Tel Aviv. I can’t go there without you. And anyway ...”
Danielle twisted back toward Ben. “Anyway what?”
“Commander Baruch knows you’re here.”
“Shit... How?”
“Your identification card when they brought you in. They called National Police. I’m sure he’s been informed by now.”
“I’m surprised I’m not under arrest,” Danielle said, not caring as much as she thought she would.
Ben leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “There’s something I have to do. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
* * * *
D
anielle had just settled herself back into bed when the door opened again and Captain Asher Bain poked his head in.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Pakad,” he said softly.
“Not at all.”
He entered the room, his squat muscular frame filling a considerable amount of the door. “When I heard you were here, I was worried. I thought it might have been the work of whoever we are after.” He closed the door behind him.
“We, Captain?”
“If my assumption is mistaken ...”
“It’s not, Captain,” Danielle said, looking into Bain’s deep, dark eyes that reflected the same emptiness she remembered in her father’s and both her brothers’. “I had a small accident. Not the result of hostile action, I assure you. I should be out of here by the morning.”
“That’s comforting.”
“And how did you hear I was in the hospital?”
“Because it occurs to me that the only way you could know is if you were having me watched.”
“A loose tail, Pakad, for your own protection. He saw the ambulance arrive at the school you were visiting outside of Jerusalem. He didn’t know what happened inside.”
“But he assumed hostile action.”
Bain shrugged his huge shoulders. “He’s career military, like me. It’s what we always assume.”
“Don’t get defensive. I’m glad you came.”
That seemed to loosen Asher Bain up a little. Danielle could see the layered cords of muscle that lined his arms and neck relax a bit. “I have the information you requested on Paul Hessler’s assailant. I thought you might be interested in hearing it. Also some other information I... don’t know what to make of yet.”
“Start with what you learned about that tattoo.”
Bain clasped his hands behind his back, rigid again. “The ‘Nightcrawlers’ were a World War Two infantry unit attached to the O.S.S.”
“O.S.S.?”
“Forerunner of the American Special Forces, or Special Operations as they are called now. Anyway, the Night-crawlers did a lot of work behind enemy lines during the closing months of the war. Blowing up ammo and fuel dumps mostly in an attempt to halt the Germans in their tracks and, finally, planning raids to rescue the surviving occupants of the labor camps in Poland after the Russians invaded from the east.”
“So that’s what these Nightcrawlers were up to when they rescued Hessler.” Danielle nodded, impressed. “But how’d you find all this out?”
“A friend at the Pentagon owed me a favor. And according to the records he helped me access, the man who tried to kill Paul Hessler is Staff Sergeant Walter Phipps. That glass eye was the key clue: Phipps lost an eye in the early days of his tour in Europe but refused a discharge. Wore a patch instead.”
“Don’t tell me, Phipps was among those who found Paul Hessler in the woods.”
“Half dead, by all accounts. Phipps and the rest of his platoon likely saved Hessler’s life.”
“And then, nearly fifty-seven years later, he tries to kill him.”
Bain frowned. “I can’t make sense of it either. Not yet, anyway. Phipps and his men initially thought they had found a Nazi spy, not a Nazi labor camp escapee.”
“Have you been able to find any link between Hessler and the three murder victims?”
“Not yet,” said Bain. “But there’s something else.” Bain remained standing at the foot of Danielle’s bed. He held his arms stiff and straight by his sides. “It has to do with your late father, Pakad.”
Captain Asher Bain moved around to the right side of the bed, closer to Danielle. She saw a flash of warmth on his expression, expected him to reach out and touch her but he stopped just out of range.
“You need to know that I asked one of our military computers for a list of other men who fit the same profile as Hessler and the three other Holocaust survivors who were murdered.” He stopped and swallowed hard. “Your father’s name was on the list.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 41
A
ll the men were survivors of either labor or prison camps,” Bain continued. “I’m sorry to have to bring this up.”
“It’s all right, Captain,” Danielle said, wondering exactly what Bain’s discovery meant. “But my father wasn’t found in the forest. He ended up in a resettlement camp and came to Palestine as a refugee.”
“And fought to create the Jewish state. Your father is a legend, Pakad.”
“Thank you.”
“But so was General Janush,” Bain added. “The murders yesterday were well planned, undertaken by professionals with the kind of skills you often hear about but seldom see.”
“Except Walter Phipps was an old, dying man,” Danielle picked up. “Not a professional.”
“So we must consider the very real possibility that Hessler’s attempted murder was unrelated to the other executions.”
“If only we knew what Walter Phipps was thinking when he began pulling that trigger...”
“The Pentagon’s file on him ends after his service in Korea, unfortunately. So we have no idea what may have transpired in the years that followed.”
“Years don’t matter, Captain. Whatever spurred Walter Phipps to action had to have been recent. Otherwise, why would he have waited so long to kill Hessler? And why try for him in Israel instead of the United States?”
Captain Bain shrugged, reluctant to meet her gaze.
“What is it?” Danielle asked him, sensing he was holding something back.
“Nothing. Not yet anyway,” he replied defensively. “There are just some... indications I find, well, disturbing.”
“Disturbing?”
His steely soldier’s eyes lost their confident glow. “Impossible would be a better way to describe it. Otherwise ...”
“Otherwise what?”
“The answers are in Germany. That’s where I’m headed from here. A nursing home in Remscheid, not far from Dusseldorf, to see a man named Gunthar Weiss. Weiss was the commandant of the labor camp in Poland where Paul Hessler was interned. After I speak with him, I’m certain I’ll be able to tell you much more.”
“Be careful, Captain.”
Bain smiled for the first time Danielle could remember. “Thank you for caring, Inspector.”
They were still looking at each other when the door opened and Ben Kamal entered holding flowers in his hand.
“I thought you might like—” Ben stopped when he saw the powerfully built man standing by Danielle’s bedside. He ran his teeth over his lower lip. “I’m sorry, Pakad, I didn’t know you had company.”
“This is Captain Asher Bain, Inspector. We’re working on something together.”
Ben didn’t offer his hand, keeping his attention completely on Danielle. “Another case?”
“It’s unofficial, at this point.”
“You’re taking on too much. That’s why you collapsed.”
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“I should be going now,” Bain said, stiff again with discomfort.
“I believe the inspector was just leaving too.”
Ben held out the flowers. “As soon as I put these in water.”
“Really,” Bain begged off, trying to slide subtly for the door. “I should be going.”
“But you’ll stay in touch,” Danielle prompted.
Bain looked at Ben, shrugged. “I’ll let you know what I find out, Pakad.”
And then he was gone, the door closing softly behind him.
“Find out about what?” Ben asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does if it’s endangering your health. Maybe that’s why you’re doing this.”
“To endanger my own health? That’s absurd.”
Ben held his ground. “Not just yours.”
“The baby? You think I’m trying to hurt the baby?”
“I think you’re trying to punish yourself for what’s happened.”
She sat up straighter in her bed. “Listen to me. Captain Bain had some information about Paul Hessler. That’s all.”
“Information pertaining to what?”
Danielle sighed. She wanted to be alone now, wanted nothing more than to ease her exhaustion with a long night’s sleep. “The murders of three Holocaust survivors.”
“With Paul Hessler nearly the fourth?”
“Possibly. We’re not sure yet.”
“You mean, Captain Bain’s not.”
Danielle ignored Ben’s sarcasm. “I guess that’s what I mean. Whatever you say. I have my reasons, all right?”
“Fine,” Ben said, half-heartedly.
“What did you speak to my doctor about after you left the room?”
“How do you know I spoke with him about anything?”
“I didn’t; I do now.”
“I asked him about the radical prenatal surgeries being done in the United States.”
Danielle nodded. “I know all about them. They’re not an option in this case.”
“But the doctor also mentioned—”
“I don’t want to discuss this. Just get out. Please.”
Danielle closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until the door closed behind him.
* * * *
CHAPTER 42
B
en stormed down the hall toward the elevator. He thought he was over considering the possibility that he and Danielle could be together. But her phone call two nights ago had set off the old emotions rampaging through him. He had hope again and the hope hurt terribly. He had forgotten how much it could hurt.
The only alternative was to shut Danielle out of his life before she had the opportunity to do the same to him. Strangely, before their visit to the doctor’s office yesterday morning, he actually thought he could do that. Now everything had changed. Facing the loss of their child had rekindled in him all the contradictory and clashing feelings he had battled since their first meeting. Once he had been able to separate their professional relationship from their personal one. Not anymore. Now he could not work a case with her without lapsing into the old discussions they’d had a hundred times already. Prior to the pregnancy it had been possible to compartmentalize his life. Accept whatever she gave him as all he really had and let himself dream about a future that held more.
But that was done, finished. Tonight had provided ample demonstration. How many times did he have to prove himself worthy? What more could he do? He had ran out of ideas and, finally, patience. Ben remembered how much he had looked forward to the one night out of seven they had spent together for months prior to Danielle’s pregnancy, her visits making the rest of the week tolerable. He believed he could survive without her in his life; he did not believe he could survive forever hoping she might still be a part of it.
The elevator doors opened on Hadassah Hospital’s first floor. Ben hadn’t even remembered stepping into the compartment, or pressing the button. He felt stiff and hot, just wanted to get outside.
A scream shocked him just before he reached the front door. Ben spun, instinctively feeling for the pistol he was not permitted to carry in Israel.
Up the hall a bit, he saw a nurse backing out of a supply closet, hands pressed against her face. She screamed again. Ben rushed to her side along with various hospital personnel and eased his way forward until he could see clearly into a closet packed with trays, linens, and towels.
Blood covered the floor, spreading outward from the severed throat of a man sprawled on his back with his head bent obscenely backward. The thin light caught just enough of the man’s face for Ben to recognize him.
He felt his breath catch.
The dead man was Captain Asher Bain.
* * * *
D
anielle was dreaming about being tucked into bed as a little girl when she heard the door to her hospital room open. She turned onto her back, half-expecting to see her father. But a nurse approached instead, holding a tray in her hand.
“I have the medication you requested,” the nurse said and approached the bed.
Danielle stirred restlessly. She watched the nurse lay the tray down on her night-table, then move toward her with a plastic cup in one hand and a paper pill dispenser in the other.
“I’m sorry,” Danielle said. “I didn’t—”
“Here you go, miss.”
Danielle was about to tell the nurse she hadn’t asked for any medication; in point of fact had refused even the mildest painkiller or sedative out of fear it might adversely effect her baby. But the nurse kept extending the cup and pill dispenser toward her. Their eyes met and the nurse smiled, something horribly forced about the gesture.
Danielle started to move.
The nurse threw the water into her face before Danielle could lurch from the bed, and lashed out toward her, leading with her nails. Long and perfectly shaped, only a few of them finished in polish. But her hands and fingers were speckled with drying blood.
Those nails! Danielle realized.
She knocked her first swipe away, grabbed the tray from the nightstand to block the second. The nurse’s fingernails sliced through the plastic with a grating, tearing sound. Danielle twisted away from the next blow, and the nails dug deep into the mattress as she dropped to the floor.
The nurse jerked her fingers back out, dragging displaced stuffing behind them, showering Danielle with indoor snow. She saw the nurse leaping headlong toward her and groped desperately for the tray that had dropped to the floor next to her, getting it up just in time for the nails to ram against it.
One of them broke and clattered to the floor. But the nurse kept slashing out with the rest of her nails, both hands now, as Danielle back-crawled across the floor, her adrenaline racing. The tray was her only weapon and she used it to fend off the blows until one launched in a wide sidelong arc knocked the tray from her grasp.
The nurse took a backswing at her and Danielle blocked the blow only to be met with another. She managed to lock her hands on the nurse’s wrists, trying to hold her off against the nurse’s determined efforts to angle her nails for a killing strike.
Fighting for her life, Danielle planted a foot
in the nurse’s midsection for leverage and heaved the smaller woman up and over her. The nurse landed behind her with a thump that rattled the floor and shook more stuffing from the bed. The nurse regained her balance almost instantly, giving Danielle just enough time to reach up and tear a sheet from the bed. She brought the sheet down over the nurse’s torso and face and twisted the fabric tight to hold her in place.