by Ted Dekker
Braun clasped his hands behind his back and spoke in a low voice. “Go on. Go to your mother.” A chill descended over Stephen. Braun’s eyes held wickedness.
Esther walked down the aisle, then hurried the last few paces and embraced Ruth. She kissed her graying hair and her cheeks, then turned to Braun.
“Untie her! What kind of animal leads a weak woman around by a rope?”
Braun’s eyebrow arched. “The master of that woman. Back!”
Esther hesitated then walked back.
“David. You are such a lovely boy.” Ruth looked between them.
It occurred to Stephen that Braun was reloading his pistol. He exchanged a short glance with Esther.
“And Martha?” Ruth asked. “How is my Martha?”
“She . . . she’s dead,” Stephen said. “She died in America two weeks ago. She died happy, and she led us to you.”
“Did she?” Braun snapped the clip home in his pistol. “Let’s give Martha credit, but not too much, shall we?”
Meaning what?
“This moment is . . . invigorating, it really is,” Braun said. “But I’m afraid we have to shift our attention back to the Stones.” He looked at Ruth. “I trust you don’t need any more convincing.”
Ruth didn’t seem to have heard the man. She was captivated by Esther and Stephen.
Braun pressed his gun into Esther’s hip. “Or do you?”
Ruth’s face settled, and her jaw firmed. Her eyes met Braun’s.
“You had us fooled all these years. Bravo. You convinced us that you couldn’t possibly have known what Martha did with the Stones. Martha wasn’t even aware that you’d survived your little hanging.” He pulled the hammer back on his revolver. “But now I know the truth. You know where Martha hid the Stones. Don’t you, dear Ruth? Martha’s letter has spoken from beyond the grave.”
No one moved. Stephen’s mind tripped back to the letter. He could see the last sentence in his mind’s eye now: As for the Stones, their hiding place will go to the grave with Ruth and me.
“As you can see, your daughter is as healthy as an ox. You have five seconds to begin speaking.”
One glance at Ruth, and Stephen knew she had the information Braun wanted.
“If you kill her, I won’t tell you,” Ruth said.
“I will do much worse than kill her.”
Braun lifted his pistol to Esther’s head. The gun jumped in his hand. Esther jerked and cried out. Blood oozed from a crease in her skin where the bullet had grazed her neck.
Roth wiped the blood from her cheek and then sucked it off his finger. “That was a warning. I imagine she can take ten carefully placed bullets without dying.”
Ruth stared at the man for a few seconds. There may have been a day when she would have called his bluff. But today she looked like a woman who’d been beaten down one too many times.
“They are buried at Toruń,” Ruth said without batting an eye.
THE SOUND of the words sent a tremor through Roth. The Stones were buried in Toruń. His focused intellect had assumed as much for years. Gerhard had even swept the camp with electronic gear once without success.
Still, Roth knew. He had always known. His whole plan practically depended on Toruń. Which is why hearing that name brought such relief.
Toruń.
Toruń, Roth’s spiritual birthing place. Where his father had shown him how to harvest souls.
Toruń, where his father had lost all of his power through one asinine decision.
Toruń, where Roth would finally become a god.
He could barely speak for all of his pleasure. “Where?”
Ruth hesitated. “Under the gates. But I will only show you when you have let her go as agreed.”
It was too much! Under the gates! The confession was nothing less than an announcement from Lucifer himself. Lead them like lambs to the slaughter, and I will deliver myself unto you.
Roth wanted to shout out his joy, but he held it back in a final act of control. He would have to spread some joy throughout Hamburg to celebrate, but only when he’d finished what his cowardly father had failed to complete himself.
A FIRE had entered Roth Braun’s eyes, Stephen thought. His eyes danced; an obscene grin tugged at his lips. Sweat dampened his face.
He walked to Stephen. “I want you to listen carefully, Jew, if you want to live. I’m sure the police in Los Angeles will have a problem with your disappearance, so go set their minds at ease. If you ever look for us, I’ll kill them both. One word to the wrong people, and Esther will pay with her life. Carry that with you to your grave.”
The man’s arm flashed out. His pistol crashed against Stephen’s skull, like bricks hurled from a catapult. He felt himself fall.
Hit the pew. Heard a sob.
Esther’s.
Then nothing.
48
ESTHER DRIFTED BETWEEN REALITIES, VAGUELY AWARE THAT something was wrong. Something had happened—something furious and explosive—followed by the smell of a strong medicine, but that was surely a dream.
They were in a dark car, she and Ruth in the back, men’s voices in the front. She thought they might have driven through a city some time ago, collected an old man with tubes in his nose, but he was surely a dream. The kind of nightmare the mind fabricated in deep, deep sleep.
In reality, she was driving with Stephen. Stephen and her mother, Ruth. They were going to Poland to deal with Braun, or they were running from him. She wasn’t sure which. Mostly, they were just going. Together. In his car. She and Stephen in the front seat, Ruth in the back. Stephen obsessing after her from behind the wheel, she pondering him from the passenger’s seat, her mother smiling with approval.
They were passing through the border into Poland, going after the Stones of David.
Stephen smiled and she smiled back, dreamy and hazy.
When the border guard waved them through, Stephen revved up the van and took off with enough acceleration to produce a tiny squeal.
“Slow down.” Esther objected. “You’re driving as if we’ve just robbed a bank.”
Stephen slowed and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Sorry. We’re okay.” He grinned. “Peachy.”
“Peachy?” It was the American colloquialism he’d used during their long discussion in the church while waiting for Braun.
“Peachy.”
“Peachy?” Ruth said. “I love peaches.”
Esther chuckled. Her mother was here, safe and together with her for the first time in her memory. She couldn’t stop looking at her, this woman who’d given birth to her and then given her life.
Then there was Stephen. Everything about Stephen struck her as a bit funny. Not funny as in comical, but funny as in nice. This man— who’d jumped out of the alley at her, who’d ruined her first good shot at Braun, and then who’d come screaming back into the church for her— made her feel funny. A nice kind of funny.
Esther turned and felt something that smelled like leather press against her face. Was she sitting up front with Stephen, or had she climbed in the back with Ruth?
Up front with Stephen, of course.
She’d never felt this way about a man before. Here was a man who claimed to be obsessed with her, a savior who’d come blazing out of the past to rescue her from her eternal prison. David, who had been born because of her mother’s sacrifice and who now seemed willing to give his life for hers in repayment. No, not in repayment. In love.
With each passing minute, the realization that Stephen really did love her grew, until she began to wonder whether she herself was smitten with this obsession of his. For him. How ridiculous! Was his disease contagious?
How could any sane woman find herself so hopelessly attracted to any man in such a short time? This couldn’t be love. It must be her irrational response to the first sign of real kindness shown her by any man in years. She’d been smothered by Braun’s thick hand since birth, a bird caught in a cage, a tiger whipped into submission, a butterfly sna
gged in a web. And now she was suddenly free because of these two people. Her mother and her . . .
Her what? That was the question, wasn’t it? Here was the kind of man she had longed for all these years. Here was her knight in shining armor. Here was the one who really did think she was beautiful. How could she possibly resist such a love? She couldn’t. And Ruth, her mother, didn’t want her to resist either. It was meant to be, and they all knew it. A fairy tale come true. She felt like laughing.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, smiling, bouncing quietly along, wanting to see if he might be looking at her. She couldn’t very well just turn and stare at him, now, could she? When they talked, she would have ample opportunity to look directly at him.
“I can’t believe I actually found you,” he would say.
Esther would face him. He would make a show of looking at the cattle in the field they were passing. But she could tell that his mind was lost on her. Why else would he swallow like that, or lick his dry lips and then bite them? His hair curled around his ear, dark strands moved by a hidden breeze. He was such a gentle man, beautiful to look at and fascinating to think about. She could still see him running over the pew tops, screaming. What kind of man would do that for her?
“Right?” he asked, glancing at her.
He’d caught her staring? But she had the right to look at him because he said something and wanted a response. Still, she’d looked at him too long. Her face flushed. She’d betrayed herself. But she didn’t look away.
He’d asked a question. What was the question?
“What?” she asked.
For an eternal moment, they stared deep into each other’s eyes. “I was just thinking of how incredible it was that I actually found you,” he said.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat and looked at the cows he’d pretended to be interested in. “Incredible. Like finding a mouse in a haystack.”
“A needle,” he said.
Another of his colloquialisms.
“How silly. Whoever heard of losing a needle in a haystack? We say mouse. Have you ever tried to catch a mouse in a haystack?”
“No.” He chuckled.
Another good opportunity to look at him. She did so, laughing with him. “What’s so funny?”
“You.”
“I’m funny?”
“No. You’re . . . cute.”
She blushed again. “Mice are cute; needles are not.”
Why was she disagreeing with him? She should be throwing herself at him and thanking him from the bottom of her heart.
“Touché,” he said.
“Yes, touché,” Ruth said. They both looked at her and smiled.
“Talk, talk,” Ruth said, waving her arms in encouragement. “I’ve waited my whole life for this moment; please don’t spoil it for me. Talk about love.”
Tears blurred Esther’s vision. She reached a hand back and squeezed her mother’s. “I’m so happy. Thank you.” She looked at Stephen and touched his arm with her other hand. “Thank you both. Thank you for finding me. I feel . . .” She paused, suddenly unsure of what to tell them. She couldn’t say she was falling madly in love with Stephen. That would sound stupid. She couldn’t say she was so glad Mother was free. That sounded too plain.
David’s right brow went up, urging her to continue.
“. . . found,” she finally said.
Esther rubbed Ruth’s hand and smiled through tears.
David frowned and nodded. “Hmm. Found. Like the treasure in the field. Wow, that’s perfect.”
It was? Wow. The American expression was new, and she liked it.
“If I’m right, he’s already on his way,” an uncomfortably familiar voice said.
Esther moaned and rolled. Funny how it felt as if she was lying down somewhere. And where was Stephen?
Maybe she was dreaming.
A FIERCE odor stung his nostrils. The sound of running feet. Stephen pulled himself from darkness. Slowly, he remembered what had happened. What was happening.
Braun had knocked him out and dumped him in the alley. He’d then taken Esther and Ruth and was on his way to Toruń.
This simple thought was filled with complex details. Details like Braun, the beast, and Esther, the beauty, and Ruth, his savior, and Toruń, the place where the beast played his game with the red scarf and killed the beauties.
Details like the fact that someone had waked him.
He pushed himself off the cobblestones in an attempt to stand. But his muscles weren’t ready to execute the maneuver, and he fell flat on his face.
Roth Braun had let him go. Why?
Stephen moaned, rolled, and desperately willed his body’s cooperation. Slowly, his arms and legs responded. Then he was tripping down the alley, one hand dragging on the wall, the other flailing for balance.
The panic hadn’t abated. Nor could it. Surges of hot and cold swept over his body like storm-driven waves. They had taken Esther. They were taking Esther to Toruń. They were going to kill Esther at Toruń.
Stephen staggered down the alley and began to cry uncontrollably. His sobs echoed off the walls. When he broke into the street, people were staring at him.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” he cried.
The statement sounded absurd. Stephen began to run. There was no way to even begin telling them what they had just done. A princess had lived among them, and they had just killed her. Every last one of them should pay for their sin!
His vision was blurry. He overran himself and slammed into the Volkswagen van. He quickly recovered, tore the door open, and slid in.
How much time had passed? What if they weren’t going to Toruń?
Pain hollowed his chest, a pain worse than long swords running him through. Nothing could be worse than this. Nothing!
Never had he wanted anything as terribly as he wanted to save Esther. His desire for the safe in Los Angeles paled by comparison.
And he knew that this was precisely what Roth expected. Stephen’s reaction was the object of this mad game Roth was playing. He was lifting and dashing hopes as his father had with the women of Toruń.
He knew it, and he was powerless to stop it.
Stephen yelled at the windshield and slammed both hands against the steering wheel, once, twice. He fired the van up and screeched through a U-turn. A man on a bicycle dived for cover.
“Get out of my way!” He was briefly tempted to drive straight over the spinning wheels.
He roared from the village, redlining the VW’s small motor before remembering to shift. When he did, he went right through the gears, blasting down the road.
The incline out of the village slowed the van, and he cursed his decision to rent the van over a Porsche.
Somewhere ahead on this very road, another car carried Esther, his dear, precious Esther, bound and taped and being led to her slaughter.
And what if he was wrong? What if Braun was still back in the village, beating the truth out of her?
Stephen shoved the brake pedal to the floor, sending the van into a precarious skid. A few hours had passed, judging by the light. Braun had to be on his way to Toruń. Either way, Stephen didn’t have time to run through the village searching, while in all likelihood Esther was on the way to Poland.
He gritted his teeth and slammed the accelerator home.
The first fifty kilometers flew by. He didn’t encounter any more than three vehicles. But then he pulled onto the autobahn headed east, and cars abounded. He felt lost in a sea of thugs, even though he knew these weren’t the thugs. A hundred cars faded in his rearview mirror before it occurred to him that getting pulled over at this speed might actually put him in jail. Then again, he was on an autobahn, wasn’t he? The square blue signs said 130 for cars and motorcycles and 80 for trucks.
He pushed the van to 140 km/h.
A hundred scenarios played through his mind. Images of Ruth. Of Esther speaking her mind and putting Braun in his place. Or being gagged and drugged. Or dead.
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God, please. I beg you. Whoever you are, whatever your purpose, I beg you, bring Esther back to me.
He still had to cross the border into Poland. Thank God he had a Russian passport and the twenty thousand dollars he’d brought with him. He only prayed it was enough to buy his way across without the right visa. He still had to reach Toruń; he still had to avoid the police while shredding whatever speed limit lay in his way.
Esther still had to be alive.
Ruth still had to be alive.
And even if they were, what then?
49
ESTHER AND STEPHEN AND RUTH HAD A DOZEN EXCHANGES, ALL dreamy, all vivid, all beautiful. And all while they were driving straight for this snake pit once known as Toruń.
What they would find there, she really had no clue, and she really didn’t want to discuss the matter. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the three of them not to discuss the place, which was strange, considering they were headed straight for it. Stephen’s preoccupation with her provided enough of a distraction.
Why were they going after the Stones of David? After all, she and David were the true Stones.
The car slowed, and Esther suddenly realized she was leaning against the door. And to her right, Ruth was also slumped over, sleeping. They apparently had fallen asleep while talking to Stephen.
She sat up and looked outside. Night. It was quiet, dark except for the bright moon. They were driving past a large, abandoned camp that looked like it had been turned into a museum. The sign over the gate . . .
STUTTHOF
Her heart bolted. Tall trees with sparse foliage surrounded the huge complex like shamed sentinels, bared for the whole world to see. Barbed fencing still surrounded the compound, and inside, dozens of identical barracks had fallen into various stages of disrepair.
A motorcycle headed the opposite way rushed past with a whine. How could anyone live near this place? But then, she’d lived in a place like this since her birth, hadn’t she?
“. . . after all these years. How can we Germans stand by and let them pretend this is a monument to the Jews?” The man spit in disgust. “It’s a monument to the greatest time in history. The Third Reich.”