by Ted Dekker
“You are very sick,” Ruth said.
“The power of life is in the blood,” he said.
51
STUTTHOF.
Stephen roared by the old camp as the sun slipped closer to the horizon, choking on his own heart. The steering wheel was slippery from his sweat, but that didn’t matter—there were no turns in this road. Stutthof was on this road, and Toruń was on this road. Sickness and death, that’s all. Sickness and death and lots of buried Jews.
He would do anything to prevent Ruth’s and Esther’s names from being added to the long list.
Maybe he’d passed them on the autobahn. After an hour at 140, he’d pushed the van to its limit and held it there all the way to Poland. The border crossing had slowed him half an hour, but his money had bought a crossing. He could only hope that the border had slowed them as well.
Assuming they had even come this way.
He was driving blind, praying incessantly, hoping that he hadn’t misjudged Braun’s intent.
If he reached Toruń before them, he would dig a hole and pretend he’d found the treasure only to hide it again. If . . .
The camp suddenly rose into view like a monster from the sea. A black car was parked in front of the gate. Two people standing.
A body hung from the crossbeam. A second next to it, lower.
Stephen’s heart seized. He barely glanced at the shoulder before yanking the van off the road, directing it through a shallow ditch and straight for the camp, two hundred meters off.
The van pounded over clumps of grass, threatening to wrest the wheel from his grasp, but Stephen hardly noticed. His eyes were locked on those bodies, and his mind was screaming bloody murder.
Esther’s legs were partially obscured by the black car from this angle. He could no longer see Braun. He was bouncing over the field and whimpering and seeing nothing but red. Red and the black forms, hands tied, neck crooked, dangling on the end of the rope.
A sliver of reason sliced into his consciousness. Other than the knife in his right sock, he had no weapon. But the van was a weapon. They would begin shooting at the onrushing van at any moment—he had to bob and weave and he had to actually hit Braun.
One hundred yards. No shots.
Stephen swung the wheel to the right, sent the van into a fishtail. He began to weave through the grass.
AT FIRST, Esther thought the blur on the horizon was a bird, diving into the field for prey. Gerhard Braun was drinking their blood, and there was a bird diving from the road.
A car sliding into the field.
Stephen!
Esther couldn’t hear the van streaking for them; her ears were filled with rushing blood and her heart was knocking. The old man might be half-deaf, and Roth too distracted, but sooner or later, they would hear. She had to distract them!
But she was still in shock. Her mind was hardly working, much less her mouth.
The van fishtailed crazily, only a hundred yards off now. She could already hear the racing engine as it bounced.
Behind her, Roth began to chuckle.
“The boy does not disappoint,” he said.
STEPHEN SAW that the rope around Esther’s neck was loose when he was still fifty meters out.
She was alive.
The sudden relief vanished immediately. She was on a stool. If she fell, she would die.
Three choices. He could try to angle directly for Roth Braun. He could ram the car and hope that it ran Braun over. Or he could crash into the gate, hoping to bring the whole thing down, including Esther.
Angling for Braun was a problem because he still couldn’t see the man at thirty yards out. Ramming the car could be a problem because the black vehicle looked pretty solid—he might accomplish nothing except his own dismemberment. And rather than saving her, crashing into the gate might turn out to be a deathblow to Esther.
He slammed the brakes and brought the van to a skidding halt three feet from the large Mercedes. Esther stared, white-faced.
Stephen began to scream.
At the top of his lungs, as he threw the door open, as he vaulted the Mercedes’ hood. He was nothing more than an enraged savage pushed to his limits by this brutal attack on Esther. His woman. His life.
The rage became awareness in the space of two steps. He pulled up abruptly.
Roth stood beside Esther, gripping one of the stool’s legs, ready to yank it out. A gun in the other hand, hanging loosely by his side. Face amused.
“Nice of you to join us,” Roth said.
“Stephen?” Esther’s voice was breathy. High-pitched.
Ruth stood strung to Esther’s left. Only then did he see the third rope, hanging on Esther’s right. This was for him?
An old man stood by a small table behind Esther. This was Gerhard, Ruth and Martha’s tormentor. There were three glasses on the table. One was stained dark; one held a small puddle of black wine; one was empty.
Then he saw the blood dripping from Esther’s bound hands. And Ruth’s hands. Their wrists had been cut and still bled.
Their predicament settled into his mind. He heaved and vomited on the hood of Braun’s car.
Roth smiled softly. “That’s right, the situation is quite hopeless, isn’t it? For you, that is. For me . . . I’m pleased to have played you so well.”
Stephen’s head was reeling. It struck him that Roth would now kill all three of them.
“Played me?”
“Surely you don’t think you’re here without my approval? I’m after more than the Stones of David. The fact is, I’ve played you like a fiddle from the moment you showed up at Martha’s apartment in Los Angeles, as I knew you would. Assuming you were still alive.”
“You were there for the Stones,” Stephen said.
“I was there for you. I knew the minute I read the news story in the Los Angeles Times that Martha suspected you were alive and was calling out to you. She was, and now here you are. Consider yourself called.”
Stephen laughed bitterly.
“I’m here because Martha was one step ahead of your father,” Stephen said. “I’m here because I’ve stayed one step ahead of you.” His voice held no conviction.
“Have you? I drew you, Jew boy. I let you find the scarf. Build your hope to the point of a mad obsession.”
Roth Braun spoke the words as if tasting each with immense satisfaction. Stephen had underestimated the power of this man.
“How do you think you escaped unharmed from the basement? Why did I let you walk out of the church in Greifsman and have my men wake you in the alley? I had to make you believe it was all your own doing—this fuels courage—but you’ve done nothing without my allowing it.”
Roth glared at him smugly.
“And why am I now telling you this, knowing that the game isn’t yet finished? Because I know how it will crush you. I intend to return all of you to the death you should have met thirty years ago. I intend to bleed and hang all three of you.”
He swayed slightly on his feet.
“Desperation, do you feel it working on your mind?”
The words bounced around Stephen’s skull like a Ping-Pong ball.
“Turn around.”
52
EVERYTHING WOULD PROCEED EXACTLY AS ROTH HAD planned now.
All three faced him, Esther on the stool, Ruth and Stephen on either side, necks tight in their nooses, hands bound and bleeding behind them.
Gerhard tipped back the chalice containing Stephen’s blood and drained it. The evening air was cool, silent except for the cricket’s song, screeching through the fields. Tears stained the faces of all three Jews.
Roth trembled.
His father set the glass on the table, eyes closed, face tilted to the dim sky. Can you feel it, Father? I have restored your power to you.
Gerhard said nothing. His frail frame looked white in the moonlight. For a moment Roth couldn’t help thinking that he was one of the starving Jews that had filled the camps, a ghost of his former self.
Roth walked toward the car slowly, a master committed to the grandest of all ceremonies.
He withdrew a rope from the car and brought it back. Without looking at his father, he slung the noose over the cross bar. It slapped the wood noisily, then swung into place, eight feet from the ground.
Gerhard’s eyes grew wide. With wonder though, not fear. He still did not understand.
“How do you feel, Father?”
Gerhard glanced at the rope. “A fourth rope?”
“For Martha,” Roth said. “All four have to hang, even if Martha’s hanging is only symbolic. How do you feel?”
Red stained the man’s lips. He looked dazed. Drunk on the blood.
“You were right,” he said. “Forgive me for ever doubting you. I feel alive.”
Roth stepped to his side, withdrew the pistol from his belt, and slammed it into Gerhard’s temple.
His father slumped, unconscious.
The Jews seemed too shocked to express their surprise. Good.
Roth hefted his father up under the arms, dragged him to the rope, and dropped him on the ground. Working calmly, he strapped Gerhard’s wrists with tape as he had the Jews. Then he pulled the noose down, slipped it over his father’s head, and drew it tight.
STEPHEN COULD not comprehend the events playing out before his eyes. The ache in his wrist where Roth had cut him faded when Gerhard collapsed in a heap.
The rope was cutting off the circulation in his neck, but he found that if he stood on his tiptoes, the blood flowed freely. This, too, was now only a distraction.
To his right, Esther’s knees were shaking on the stool.
To his left, Gerhard Braun lay bound and noosed.
Roth was going to hang them all, including his own father.
“I have decided to let each of you witness a hanging before I hang you,” Roth said. “I want you to see the horror on a man’s face when he realizes that he has not found freedom and glory. He has to die so that I can take his power.”
Roth’s face shone with sweat, not from exertion. His eyes fixed on his father.
“I would have to say that it’s worked out better this way. You’ve all spent your lives searching. Whether you knew it or not, seeking, seeking. And tonight you’ve found your treasure. But it isn’t the treasure you were hoping for, is it? Not what Martha had in mind at all. Your hope for love and all that nonsense is now smothered by horror. Emptiness. Death. Hope, on the other hand, will belong to me.”
An image of Chaim and Sylvia flashed through Stephen’s mind. A week ago he’d been busy trying to convince Dan what a good investment the property in Santa Monica would make. He’d forsaken all that was once dear for the woman who now teetered on a stool beside him.
What had happened to him? He’d lost his mind.
Or had he? No, he’d found his heart.
Esther, I am so sorry.
“If you can see his eyes, watch them carefully,” Roth said. “You can see the horror in the eyes.”
He looked at Stephen for a moment, and then frowned as if disappointed that, in his current state, Stephen wouldn’t be watching Gerhard’s eyes, at least not carefully.
Roth suddenly stepped forward, grabbed the end of Gerhard’s rope that hung free, and began to haul his father off the ground, headfirst.
The father came to his knees.
Gerhard coughed once, sputtered, and threw his hands around his neck. He clawed at the rope, disoriented. Finally he got his feet under himself and staggered to his feet.
“What . . .” he screeched. He began to cough before he could finish the sentence.
Roth tied his end of the rope around the post, walked to Gerhard, who was now hacking and wheezing in agony, and spread gray tape over the old man’s lips. The father’s eyes bulged wide and he strained to breathe through flaring nostrils.
Roth uttered a short cry of delight and jumped back to the post. He grabbed the rope with both hands and yanked Gerhard off the ground.
His father began to kick.
“You should have let me kill her, Father,” Roth said. “Now look what you’ve gone and done.”
Roth tied the rope off again. Gerhard’s struggles eased. His wheezing was choked off. Only the crickets screeched.
Roth bounded behind his father, slipped a silver knife from his belt, and lined it up along the man’s wrists.
Another kick from Gerhard.
“Be still!”
Roth cut him. Then jumped back, delighted. He ran to the table, scooped up one of the glass chalices and hurried back to his father. He worked frantically now, driven to drain his father’s power and satisfy his obsession.
Gerhard went limp.
Roth lifted the glass and drank.
And then the air went silent again. Even the crickets had momentarily stalled their wails.
All the while Ruth had kept her eyes fixed dead ahead. Esther had followed her mother’s cue and stood tall, despite the trembling in her legs.
And Roth . . . Roth stood panting behind them.
Stephen wasn’t sure why, but the entire scene suddenly struck him as nothing more than child’s play, which was odd because his quest for power certainly wasn’t child’s play. Still, in context, it now seemed hardly more than silly.
Foolish ambition in the face of far greater power.
What could possibly drive a man to such insane depths? What made one man crave another man’s blood?
Obsession. A craving to have what he could not have. Power. Like Lucifer himself defying God in hopes of elevating himself. This moment was nothing less than the collision of two obsessions, theirs and Roth’s. God’s obsession with man. Lucifer’s obsession with himself. Humankind’s obsession with God on one hand, or themselves on the other hand.
Stephen turned his head to Esther and Ruth. He smiled. “I love you, Esther. God has given you to me as my obsession, and I love you.”
“And I love you, David,” Esther said bravely.
“Take courage,” Ruth whispered. “God is our deliverer.”
THE JEWS were talking, but Roth couldn’t make out what they were saying. His head throbbed with an expansive pride that elevated him to a state of heavenly perfection.
It was finished. He had restored his father’s power and now taken his soul. Even the Stones of David were now his. The Jews were cowering. He would hang them next. Then he would cut down the bodies and bury them behind the forest.
“Roth!”
The sound of his name cut through his heavy head.
“Roth. Oh, Roth, you do have a problem.”
It was the Jew. Stephen. What was he saying?
Roth turned around and stared at them blankly.
“You’re drunk on your father’s blood, so you may not realize it yet, but you have a very significant problem,” Stephen said boldly. Too boldly. “Your plan to harvest souls in anguish has failed.”
Roth’s mind started to clear. The Jew was trying to sabotage this glorious evening?
“You have not killed our hope. You can’t.”
THE MOMENT he saw Roth’s bewildered expression, Stephen knew he’d struck a chord of fear in the man. This simple yet genuine display of courage undermined him in a way that no physical power could.
Stephen laughed, loudly, deliberately. “Ha! You’ve lost the upper hand, man. Our simple love overpowers you with a single word. Hang us! Hang us and see that it gains you nothing!”
He felt giddy. Perhaps it was the result of the emotional strain he’d suffered for a week now. Perhaps there was some truth in his claim—surely some of that. But mostly Stephen yelled the words because they really did fill him with a sense of power.
He laughed again, louder this time. “You’ve taken nothing from us!”
ROTH STARED at him. This was a farce.
Stephen was smiling because he’d gone mad with fear.
Then the Jew looked up at Esther, but continued to address Roth. “You thought you brought me for a death, but instead I have found love.” Stephen faced him and set his jaw. “I love Esther!” he cried, eyes bright with passion. “I love her. I love her deeply, and I can die easily, happily knowing that I have found my love.”
He kept laughing. A genuine laugh.
Roth was too shaken to move.
“And I have found love,” Esther said. “God has given me love instead of fear.”
Roth slammed his fist on the table. “Stop it!”
Ruth was smiling.
This couldn’t be! He couldn’t hang them while they were in this frame of mind. It would undermine his whole plan. Anguish! He had to return them to a state of anguish!
“I am about to hang you fools by the neck until you are dead!” He thrust a finger toward Gerhard. “Look at my father. Look at his white, dead face!”
They did not look.
The mother, Ruth, stared at him between the eyes. “You have another problem,” she said. “The box that you believe holds the Stones of David is empty.”
What was she saying?
“Don’t be a fool,” he said.
“Check it.”
“You’re lying.”
“Check it,” Stephen said. “Then hang us if you want. You’ve lost whatever you came here to gain anyway. We have no regrets, no fear. Only love at finding each other.”
Roth didn’t want to check the box. He knew that even considering their lies was a sign of weakness. But the thought of owning the Stones had set its claws deeper into his mind than he had guessed.
He walked to the box as slowly as possible.
THE MOMENT Roth turned, Stephen lifted his right heel and grabbed at his ankle with his bound hands.
He managed to grab his slacks and support his leg with one hand while he groped for the knife in his sock with his other hand. His fingers closed around the handle. Pulled it free.
He lowered his leg. If he dropped the knife now, there would be no retrieving it. He had to saw through the tape that bound his wrists before Roth returned his attention to them.