The Linz Tattoo

by Nicholas Guild

  Christiansen nodded. “Okay. Go for the heart. And don’t even try to be sporting, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  He disappeared—it wasn’t hard up there, where you could stand shaded from the moonlight by a tree limb and be shrouded in impenetrable black. But the Mossad must have taught him something because Christiansen couldn’t even hear him moving. It was a noiseless winter night, and he didn’t make a sound. After a while, Christiansen went back over to the edge of the cliff and began hauling up the equipment, which was about all he was good for.

  There was a slight scuffle, that was all. You might not even have known it was going on if you weren’t listening for it. And then Itzhak came back into the little clearing by the cliff face and sat down. He didn’t have the knife with him anymore, and there was a dazed look in his eyes.

  “Any trouble?” .

  “No. Nothing. It’s just. . . Is it always like this?”

  “Yes, it’s always like this. Not so bad after the first time, but always just like this.”

  The line pulled tight, which meant that Faglin was on his way up. There was nothing for either of them to do except to wait.

  “My God! I won’t ever want to do that again.”

  Christiansen reached down over the edge, grabbed Faglin by the arms, and dragged him up. They waited while Faglin lay there on his face, trying to recover. They knew just how he felt.

  Finally he rolled over. He wasn’t ready to do much more, but he wasn’t just waiting to die either.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “We see if you were bright enough to remember to bring the coffee.”

  Christiansen opened the knapsack, and there it was. He unscrewed the thermos cap and filled it about half full. The sides of the cap felt deliciously warm against his palms. Then he decided that Itzhak probably needed it worse than he did and passed it over to him.

  Faglin was busy with the rest of their gear. He took out the sections of a Sten gun and fitted them together. There were also two pistols. The rest he left in the knapsack.

  “Where’s my knife?” he asked, looking at Itzhak. Itzhak only stared at him. He was still too engrossed in his own private nightmare to be able to provide an answer. It had been a heavy few hours for him.

  “I imagine it’s sticking in a dead German,” Christiansen said. “You might go have a look—the trail is back there. Itzhak blooded himself tonight.”

  Faglin got up to have his look. When he came back he was carrying two Mauser rifles. Christiansen had forgotten all about the rifles.

  “I found my knife.” he said. “What happened to the one with his head torn open?”

  “The grappling hook. It was at hand.”

  “Oh my God.”

  When Itzhak was finished with the cup, Faglin and Christiansen each had some coffee. It was almost like a picnic, except they all knew there was very little time before one or another of the sentries was missed.

  “Let’s go find the barracks,” Faglin said.

  They had the flashlights, and there really wasn’t any reason why they shouldn’t use them. Anyone who saw would just think it was one of the sentries making his rounds. They followed the trail, and pretty soon it led out of the woods and into a clearing. From there they could see Hagemann’s villa, its white walls gleaming in the cold, hostile light of a series of flood lamps—Hagemann wasn’t taking any chances. Across a lawn was a squat little building that had one light on over the door but was otherwise dark. This was where the guards slept. For the rest there was only a chain link fence that stretched off into the darkness in both directions.

  They didn’t like the clearing very much. There was too much light—all somebody would have to do was look out through a window. The woods were safer, so they went back there.

  The minute they were protected behind the shadowy line of trees, Faglin squatted down over his knapsack and pulled out something that looked for all the world like a bratwurst. It had wires coming out of either end, and he attached these to a device shaped like a clock face except that it was the approximate size of a tea saucer and in place of hands it had a single dial.

  “This will detonate ten seconds after impact,” he said, twisting the dial around with a precise movement that indicated a certain gingerly respect for the thing’s destructive power. “Or if someone attempts to fiddle with it—whichever happens first. I’ll toss it through the barracks window. Believe me, we won’t have to worry about any interference from those boys.”

  There were probably ten or twelve men asleep in that darkened building, and Faglin was proposing to kill them all in one go. It would be abstract—he wouldn’t have to look into their faces while they died. He wouldn’t have to have much of anything to do with it, and it wouldn’t bother him a bit. That was how murder was achieved in the modem world. Hagemann’s soldiers would be no loss to the human race and, God knows, if Faglin didn’t have a right to kill them they could live forever. Christiansen wasn’t offering any criticism. He was just glad, for the state of his soul, that he performed his homicides directly. He would rather put up with the bad dreams.

  “That will only leave whoever is in the main house,” he said, trying not to remember that Esther was one of them. “We’ll have to flush them out somehow. Do you suppose you’d have enough of your modeling clay left over to start the right sort of fire? Something with lots of smoke? Just for the sake of a little excitement?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  Christiansen avoided Faglin’s eyes—he didn’t want to see what was there. Everything was settled. For good or ill they had their plan, and now events would roll forward with a momentum that would make everyone its victim.

  If it came to it, and there was no other way of keeping Esther out of Hagemann’s hands, Christiansen had decided that he was going to kill her. If he didn’t, Faglin would—the Mossad simply couldn’t afford to let the secret she carried get away from them. Not a second time. And if it had to be done it was better it be done by someone who loved her.

  All he could do was hope that it wouldn’t come to that.

  He knew now why he was here, and that it had nothing to do with events in Kirstenstad all those years ago—at any rate, almost nothing. He wanted to kill Egon Hagemann, but that was not what had brought him. He wanted to get Esther back. He wanted the chance to go on with his life.

  There were propane tanks outside the villa’s kitchen. Faglin was that very minute huddled beside one in the darkness, fixing a charge to the underside. It would cause one hell of a fire.

  First they would blow up the barracks, then the villa—one right after the other. And then it was hunting season, with every man for himself. Itzhak would cover the back of the villa with his rifle, and Faglin and Christiansen would go in the front from opposite sides. There was no knowing how everything, in the end, would turn out.

  Christiansen looked up at one of the windows on the second story—still lit up, even at this hour of the morning.

  . . . . .

  It had been several hours since Esther had tasted any of the brandy, but she still carried the bottle around with her, holding it by the neck in her right hand, hardly remembering it existed.

  It had done its work. Her headache was gone and she felt almost calm. Everything seemed very simple now. She had decided that she would kill Colonel Hagemann herself. It was only a question of hitting on the means.

  Provided they had no fear of death, anyone could kill anyone. The strong were helpless against the weak—all she had to do was decide how.

  She glanced down at the brandy bottle, a little surprised to discover it actually existed, and then she smiled.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  It was Hagemann. He had opened the door and stepped inside so quietly that she hadn’t imagined he was there, but she managed to smother the sudden rush of fear and turned around to meet him tolerably composed.

  She hated him—“hate” was hardly even adequate—but she managed
to smile after a fashion.

  “I’m glad to find you in better spirits, Esther. Are you prepared to live now, and listen to reason?”

  The smile on his own lips seemed to mock at her, as if he understood everything that was in her mind, had always understood and would never be taken in. He was a superior being, a member of the race of masters. What could she hope to achieve against him? He took a few tentative steps toward her and raised his hand, as if offering to take hers, and then he stopped and the smile died.

  She was standing beside the bed, just at the edge of the white carpet beneath it, and suddenly she knelt down and smashed the brandy bottle against the tile floor. The bottom broke cleanly away, leaving the upper half a series of vicious, jagged points. As she got up she took a lunge toward Hagemann and the broken bottle raked across the palm of his open hand.

  He looked down at it with surprise, as if he hardly knew what to make of the blood that was suddenly pouring out over his fingers. It didn’t last long, but for that moment he didn’t seem to have the will to defend himself. Esther got ready to lunge at him again—this time she would cut his throat.

  But she was just too late. As she swung her arm around toward him, his own came up to block it and the shock of pain that reached all the way to her shoulder caused her to let go of the bottle. But not before one edge of it touched lightly against Hagemann’s cheek, leaving behind a thick trail of blood. It was the best she could do.

  The bottle struck the floor and smashed, and at almost the same instant Esther felt a blow to the side of the head that sent her reeling. A second had her down on her hands and knees, and when she tried to get up Hagemann kicked her in the ribs, using the whole top of his shoe so that the toe caught her in the left breast.

  She couldn’t breathe anymore. All she could hold in her mind was the hope that he wouldn’t kick her again, that she would have those few seconds to find a breath of air before he killed her. And of course he would kill her—at Waldenburg once she had seen him hack a man to death with a shovel merely for daring to look him directly in the face.

  But instead he was kneeling beside her, his hands on her shoulders, lifting her up. He had wrapped a handkerchief around his cut hand, but otherwise he hardly seemed to notice. The wound on his face was bleeding so freely that it had soaked the front of his shirt and his clean white jacket.

  “What’s happened to you, Esther? Do you hear me? What’s taken possession of you—have you gone mad?”

  She was all right now. All she felt was pain.

  “I wanted to kill you,” she said. Merely to speak the words, and to see the expression on Hagemann’s face, gave her an intense, almost sensual pleasure.

  Yes, this was worth dying for.

  Hagemann pushed her away and rose to his feet. He hardly seemed to know what to do.

  And then, quite suddenly, his confidence returned. He looked down at her with his old smile.

  “So I was right—more right than I could have guessed. This time it won’t be anything like Waldenburg, will it, my dear. No. Perhaps that’ s just as well.”

  He took the handkerchief from around his hand and used it to make some attempt at wiping the blood off his face.

  “At Waldenburg you were a reasonable creature and afraid of me, and you survived that place—you survived longer than any of my other women. But you should have learned in the camps what happens to those who hang on to the illusion of being human. They are trampled into the mud.”

  “Do you think I care if you kill me?” she shouted. “Do you think I care?”

  She struggled to rise from her knees. She didn’t want to meet death like that. Just for once, not like that.

  “No, perhaps you don’t. But you will when the moment comes. When I’ve decided to kill you, I’ll make it my business to make you care.”

  He began to take off his belt. He was excited—she could see that clearly enough. He had plans.

  No, he hadn’t changed at all.

  “It will be interesting to see how your newfound dignity holds up, Esther. And this, of course, will only be the merest taste of what’s to come. Before we’re finished you’ll give me everything, my dear. You’ll tell me all your little secrets. You’ll beg me—just as you used to—to do whatever I like with you.”

  As she staggered to her feet he reached out and took the front of her dress in his hand, pulling it away and yanking her back down to the floor. She hit her elbow against the tiles, and as she reached up to cover her naked breast she felt Hagemann’s belt cut her across the face.

  Yes, let him kill her. There wouldn’t be anything to hold him back now. She wanted him to kill her. She would force him to it.

  “He’ll kill you,” she whispered. She could hardly even do that—it felt as if the buckle had torn her mouth. “He’ll kill you, no matter what you do to me. How will you feel then?”

  Yes, this was the moment. He wouldn’t be able to help himself—she could read it in his face. He raised his hand. . .

  She felt the tremor before she heard anything. It was something that passed through the room like a shudder. And then she looked up at Hagemann and realized it wasn’t what she had expected. Hagemann wasn’t even looking at her. He had forgotten her completely as he stared into empty space. The belt dropped from his hand.

  He said something, but it was lost in the sound of the explosion.

  25

  Christiansen walked around to the front of the villa, carrying a pistol. He had left his rifle behind—this was going to be a night for close work. Anyone who looked out a window could have seen him, but it was too late now for that to make any difference.

  He never saw Faglin throw his incendiary. The explosion was terrific, and thick black-red columns of fire licked out of the broken windows. One man got out through the front door. He was screaming and the whole back of his body was on fire. He only managed six or seven steps before he collapsed and lay quite still on the ground, still burning. No one else came out. No one else was ever coming out.

  The kitchen fire started only a few seconds later. Christiansen couldn’t see it, but he heard the blast. Now it was time to do something.

  The front door gave way with a kick, and he found himself in a large entrance hall with a tiled floor. There was a stairway, made of massive dark wood and carpeted with a Persian runner, a couple of doors at either end of the hall, and two arched entryways to what were obviously reception rooms, side by side against the rear of the building. What impressed him in that first instant was the stillness. No one was anywhere to be seen, and there wasn’t a sound.

  He stepped into one of the reception rooms and snicked on a light switch. It was a beautiful room—the floor was dark, polished hardwood covered with a Persian carpet that could have been worth any amount of money. The furniture was old, heavy and well cared for. There was no one there, nor in the other reception room, with which it connected. It was almost as if no one was coming to their party. The only sound was the muted roar of flames and the crackling of burning timber. In just a few minutes this place would be an inferno.

  There was a door leading off the second reception room. It was open just a few inches, and Christiansen pushed against it with the palm of his hand. Inside, standing behind a desk as if he were looking for something, was a man in what was obviously an old SS uniform but with the identifying badges removed. He had thin hair, almost white and carefully combed back from his forehead, and he wore a pair of rimless spectacles. The desk drawer was open. When he saw Christiansen he reached inside. Christiansen shot him through the eye and the man pitched over backward, hitting his head against the wall behind him and leaving a wide smear of blood. He was quite still when Christiansen came over to look at him. There was a Luger lying in the desk drawer, but that didn’t make any difference. Christiansen would have killed him anyway.

  There was the noise of shooting from the entrance hall—Faglin’s Sten gun from the sound of it. Christiansen ran back and found a fat Arab in a pair of red and whi
te striped silk pajamas lying at the foot of the stairway, his chest cut open by a burst of machine gun fire. It was the man Christiansen had seen sitting beside Hagemann at the Café Pícaro the night before. It seemed like a thousand years ago.

  Faglin was there too. His face was streaked with smoke and he looked excited, the way men always do in battle.

  “Do you know who that was?” he asked, gesturing with the muzzle of his gun toward the dead Arab. He didn’t wait for an answer. “That was Mustafa Faraj, the head of the Syrian Foreign Office’s Department of Jewish Affairs. These people meant business.”

  “Where is Hagemann?”

  “What?”

  You could smell the fire by then, the thick smell of burning varnish. And the air was hot and hard to breathe. They had perhaps two or three minutes before everything within those walls would be as dead as the house itself, but still Faglin didn’t seem to know what he was talking about.

  “Dammit—have you been upstairs?”

  “No.” Faglin looked down once more at the corpse of the fat little Arab, and then he seemed to return to himself. “There hasn’t been time.”

  Christiansen stepped over the body and started up the stairs, three at a time. And Faglin was right behind him.

  “Esther!” he heard himself shouting. “Esther, are you there?”

  The second floor was a long corridor with doors on both sides. Some of them were open, as if people had left in a hurry. Christiansen kicked in the first one he came to, but the room was empty—there was just time to notice that it smelled strongly of violet water. The window was open. Outside there were two shots from a rifle, the reports just far enough apart to indicate that they had been very carefully placed. There was the crack of a pistol firing out in the corridor, overwhelmed at once by another burst of machine gun fire.

  Christiansen went to the next bedroom, and the next. In one he found another man in his pajamas who looked as if he had shot himself in the heart, God alone knew why. His pistol was on the floor beside him. But he didn’t find Esther, and he didn’t find Hagemann. When he came back out to the landing, Faglin was waiting for him.