The Barbed Crown (The Vatican Knights Book 13)

by Rick Jones

  When Becher reached the opposite side of the bank, he knew that he had leveled the playing field. He had rendered the unit’s most viable tools useless.

  Disappearing within the thicket, Becher was gone, the leaves folding over behind him.

  But that didn’t deter Dieter, Wagner and the two others under Dieter’s command. With the dogs out of commission along with their handlers, Dieter headed the group to the opposite side of the bank and gave chase.

  * * *

  Becher ran—ducking, bobbing and weaving through the brush.

  Then came the report of a sharp crack, a gunshot. The branch to Becher’s left exploded away from the trunk of a tree, as a round knocked it clean off. Instinctively, Becher ducked then weaved to his right and away from the line of fire. Then another shot that was just as loud and crisp, this time the bullet passing his ear with a waspy hum.

  “Herr Becher.” Dieter again. “Stop running. You cannot get away or run forever.”

  Two more shots. Neither were close, however.

  “Beeeecheeeer!”

  Sooner rather than later, Becher knew he would have to turn and fight. So Dieter was right about one thing: he couldn’t run forever.

  Becher rounded a formation of boulders, removed his backpack, and placed it in such a way on top of a boulder, it was barely visible to those who were blazing a path toward his position.

  Removing his pistol, Frederic Becher waited.

  * * *

  The moment Dieter saw the hump of the backpack sticking up from behind the boulder, he held his hand up to halt his team.

  “Herr Becher,” Dieter said as he held the point of his weapon steady. “If I have to wound you and drag you back to camp, I will certainly do so. It is what it is, yes? For those who run away.”

  Silence.

  “Herr Becher?”

  Nothing.

  “Herr Becher, don’t be foolish. There are four of us and one of you.”

  Still nothing.

  Dieter then directed two of his men to round the boulders from the opposite side, whereas Wagner was to follow Dieter so they could squeeze Becher from the other and pinch Becher in between them.

  “Wound him if you have to,” Dieter whispered. “But do not kill him.”

  The teams separated, one going left and the other moving to the right.

  The backpack was still and unmoving, just a marginal showing of its canvas from behind the rock. Becher was hunkered deep, Dieter considered, the large rocks a formidable barrier, but not formidable enough.

  Slowly, they rounded the grouping of boulders.

  * * *

  Becher waited.

  His heart pounded so heavily inside his chest, he could hear his blood rushing across his ear canals like the passing of a freight train.

  Then he saw them, Dieter’s two lackeys, kids who were not much older than he was, rounding the large rocks with their weapons raised, and closed in on the position of the backpack, which Becher was nowhere near, but hiding in a thicket ten meters away.

  When the two moved to a position in front of Becher, Becher quietly stepped away from the hedges and drew close to them from behind. Raising the point of his Luger, Becher pulled the trigger in quick succession, two shots that punched neat lines through the back of their skulls and through their foreheads, the exit-wounds the size of golf balls.

  Both men fell to the ground as gelatinous heaps, hitting the ground before they knew they were dead.

  Then Becher slid back into the thicket, taking refuge.

  * * *

  Two shots.

  Dieter’s first thought was that Becher had been wounded. But when he and Wagner rounded the boulders, half his team was lying dead on the ground. The backpack they thought Becher was wearing was sitting on top of a rock as bait. And Becher was nowhere to be seen.

  “Back,” Dieter informed Wagner, pushing the big man behind the cover of the boulders. “That son of a bitch.”

  They scanned the area, which was heavy with brush.

  Becher was a chameleon.

  “Very good, Herr Becher. Apparently you’ve learned your lessons well as a soldier, yes?”

  Silence.

  “There are still two of us.”

  Not even the rustle of leaves. If Becher was hiding, then he was as still as a Grecian statue.

  “Herr Becher, Herr Wagner and I are much wiser to your schemes. We will find you… And we will take you back.”

  Wagner leaned into Dieter. “You keep talking. I’ll go back and come up the path from behind. You’ll have to give me about five minutes.”

  Dieter nodded in agreement.

  Then the big man slipped away.

  * * *

  As Dieter was talking over a period of time, Becher knew he was stalling. The big man, Wagner, he knew, was working his way around to his position. Whether it was from his left or right, Becher didn’t know. So he drifted deeper into the brush, slowly and silently, until Dieter’s voice sounded distant through the dense trees. And then he heard a snap of a broken branch, which was quickly followed by another crunch, both coming from Becher’s left. Wagner, Becher thought, being such a big man, was hardly graceful in his movement as he waded through the thicket using the barrel of his rifle to part the leaves.

  In the distance, Dieter continued to talk.

  So Becher, using the surrounding brush as his ally, closed in on Wagner.

  * * *

  The big man pushed forward as his weight came down on broken branches and snapping them, the sound as clamorous as a blaring trumpet. But Wagner appeared unaffected by this as he scanned the surrounding thicket.

  Trees and brush to his left.

  Trees and brush to his right.

  Trees and brush everywhere.

  Becher had chosen well, he considered. In fact, he most likely had the advantage.

  Then to Wagner’s right came the sound of a stick snapping, a crack that filled the air.

  Wagner turned his weapon to that direction. Nothing but a wall of shrubbery.

  Then came a noise to his left as if a stone had been thrown to redirect his attention elsewhere, which it did, the big man now swinging his weapon toward a thicket of wild brush.

  Then came a report of gunfire, an echoing gunshot that caught Wagner in the shoulder. The big man winced against the white-hot pain that felt like the stab of a hot knitting needle, the point driving deep.

  From Wagner’s left, Becher approached him with the point of his Luger directed to Wagner’s center mass. Wagner, with his good arm, swung his rifle around and was able to get off a single shot and missed, the round striking the trunk of a tree to Becher’s left, the bark splintering.

  Becher got off a second shot, the bullet punching a whole in Wagner’s chest, high and left of his heart, and lodged in his pectoral muscle.

  Wagner, grimacing against the pain, raised his weapon and pulled the trigger. This time a bullet found the mark of Becher’s hip, a crippling blow that knocked Becher off his route and to the ground.

  The big man got off two more shots, both wide, until his weapon went dry. Since he was unable to reload due to his injured shoulder, Wagner came at Becher holding the rifle as a club.

  But Becher responded with his Luger, his aim true. As Wagner bore down on him with a look that had been born from pain and anger, Becher got off a single shot that struck Wagner at the indented point just under his nose and upper lip, with the bullet’s angled trajectory striking bones that redirected the bullet’s course, until it exited through his crown. The top of Wagner’s head exploded upward as red gore ejected like lava flow. And then the big man stood wavering on unstable footing as if he was trying to determine whether or not he was dead or alive, until his body fell backward to the earth, and hard, though his fall had been cushioned by leaves.

  After Becher looked at the dead man and noted the fatal wound, pain seemed to blossom throughout his lower extremities like spreading wildfire, the agony becoming even more intense and obviousl
y having no boundaries.

  Then the brush parted before him, the leaves spreading as a figure emerged.

  It was Dieter. “Herr Becher,” he said. “Now it’s just the two of us, yes?”

  Then he directed the point of his weapon on a wounded Becher. “Nice try,” he said.

  Dieter pulled the trigger.

  * * *

  The bullet penetrated Becher’s left shoulder, his non-shooting side, and smashed its way through the scapula bone, breaking it. With everything Becher could muster and reaching down to whatever reserves he had left, hearing Ayana’s voice in his mind telling him to ‘fight,’ Becher raised his pistol and got off three rounds in quick succession.

  …pow…

  …pow…

  …pow…

  One round struck Dieter’s kneecap, the leg bending hideously into a dog-bend from the impact. And as he was falling, he caught two more rounds; one in the shoulder and the other clipping his earlobe, the flesh disappearing.

  Dieter lost control of his weapon and lay writhing on the ground clutching a leg that was bending the wrong way at the knee. “You son of bitch!” he cried out through clenched teeth. Then he just cried out, a holler that carried long through the thickets like the howl of a canine.

  Becher sat up on his rear, the man dirtied and bloodied. “Now you know what it’s like, Herr Dieter, to feel the pain of a Jew.”

  Dieter gave him a sidelong look, one filled with hatred. “You will not be able to run far, Herr Becher. No matter where you go, you will be found.”

  Becher nodded. “Perhaps.”

  “There’s no ‘perhaps.’ There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  “The Americans and the British are west of our position.”

  Dieter gave him a dirty little laugh. “You think you can cross the lands wounded as you are?” Another laugh, this one laden with malice. “No way, Becher. You’ll bleed out long before you hit the main roads.”

  In unimaginable pain that caused the edges of his sight to blacken, Becher peeled the fabric away to look at his hip. The wound was raw and ugly looking, the flesh surrounding the puncture torn and ragged.

  “But I’ll tell you what,” Dieter went on. “When I get back to the camp, do you want to know what I plan to do?” His smile became a grimace that showed lines of bloodied teeth. “I know about your Jew girlfriend,” he told him. “It’s no secret that you’re a lover of Jews.” His smile expanded into something completely and malevolently evil, a rictus grin. “I’m going to take that sweet little meat of yours, and I’m going to—”

  Dieter’s face became a mass of gore and pulp, as the remaining rounds from Becher’s pistol smashed and destroyed any facial features that made Dieter recognizable. As Dieter fell back, a ribbon of smoke rose from the crater that used to be his face.

  Becher, grimacing, tossed the weapon aside.

  With a wounded shoulder and an injured hip that made it close to impossible for him to walk, he could see Ayana’s smiling face as he closed his eyes, just the image of her smiling somehow washing away enough of the pain to keep him going.

  Grabbing a branch to use as a makeshift crutch, Becher decided he would not be able to scale the rough terrain to get his backpack due to his condition, and made his way west without it. No food. No water. Just gut and grit.

  For hours he made his way through the forest, fighting for every step. And when he felt dizzy he rested. But as the streamers of light began to fade in the west, Becher found the road he was looking for. It was a dirt road with markings made by the wheels of horse-drawn wagons and carts. And Becher smiled at this. All roads lead to Rome, he said to himself. Then he started to make his way west under the weight of pain so great, he knew he would never make it.

  I’m sorry, Ayana, his mind cried. I know I promised to come back for you. But I don’t think I can do it. The pain…

  And in time Becher’s knees buckled, the man falling as the darkness at the edges of his eyes began to close in.

  Then he saw a shape standing over him, a silhouette that came and went as he drifted to and from consciousness. Then Becher raised a hand to it, could hear a voice that was kind and gentle and caring speak to him, in a tone that was meant to soothe and comfort.

  “Ayana?” He extended his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  And then a pair of hands embraced Becher’s, the touch warm and soft.

  “It’s all right,” said the voice. “It’s all right.”

  To Becher it sounded like Ayana but didn’t, the voice alien and familiar to him at the same time.

  Then Becher smiled as the darkness surrounding the edges of his sight closed in quickly. The last word he said before he finally fell unconscious was ‘Ayana.’ And as he slipped away, Frederic Becher was able to maintain his smile.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The lights.

  The ceiling.

  The antiseptically white room.

  The clean bedding.

  And the nurse—a woman wearing a habit.

  Frederic Becher tried to prop himself onto his elbows, but couldn’t because the pain was too great, and eased back into the softness of his bed.

  When the nurse saw Becher trying to manage the feat, she left the room.

  Five minutes later, a man wearing the attire of a cleric entered the room and took residence in a seat by the bed. He had a youthful face that was handsome and kind. And in between the collar of his shirt was a pristine-white band worn by priests.

  “How are you?” the priest asked him.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re safe,” the man told him.

  Becher looked at the collar. “Are you a priest?”

  The man smiled. “I am.”

  When Becher’s eyes wandered over the room, the cleric intuited his thoughts. “You’re in an infirmary in Hungary,” he told him. “It’s an annex to the church, which is currently under the protection of the Vatican for now. Once you’re stabilized, you’ll be free to go.”

  Becher shook his head. “There’s nowhere for me to go,” he said. “I’m a hunted man without a country.”

  “You’re a German. And Germany is to the north of us.”

  “How do you know what I am?”

  “You were wearing the clothes of a Nazi soldier.”

  Becher swallowed at this and looked ceilingward. Of course. And then: “I ran from my post,” he admitted. “Should the SS discover who I am, they’ll kill me.”

  “Why’d you run?”

  Becher shook his head as if to stave off a terrible memory. “Because of the camps,” he said.

  The priest eased forward in his seat. “Camps?”

  Becher nodded. Then he went into a very long discussion about the atrocities that went on inside these camps, such as the systematic killings that numbered into the thousands, with the bodies bulldozed into mass graves when the ovens couldn’t handle the quantity. Beatings, starvation, summary executions—none which altered the features of the young priest’s face, his appearance always middle-of-the-road as he listened to every word from the young German.

  “And your position in all this?” the priest asked him.

  “Meaning?”

  “Your involvement? The atrocities committed by your hand.”

  Becher seemed to blanch at this, his face becoming pale.

  “Are there confessions you wish to make?” the priest asked him.

  Becher, after a moment, gave a slight nod.

  So the priest listened as Becher told him of the murders he committed, three in all, a young girl who dreamed of becoming a ballerina; an old man who tried to break free from the line to the gas chamber and shot dead, a moment Becher realized that the system had desensitized him to the point of stripping away his conscience, but not fully; and a man called Dror, the anointed King of the Jews, whose Crown of Thorns was fashioned from the twisted coils of barbed-wire.

  The young priest listened without passing judgment, since passing judgment was not his privilege or e
ntitlement. And he did so until Becher had exhausted every word of his confession.

  “You think me a monster,” Becher finally said to him, a statement and not a question.

  The young priest nodded. “Not at all,” he told him. Then he blessed Becher by giving him the Sign of the Cross along with a few words in Latin.

  “Not even in judgment?” Becher asked further.

  “Not even that,” said the priest, who then crossed one leg over the other in leisure. “In fact, I was a part of the Jungvolk.”

  Becher was stunned by this. “You’re German?”

  “I am. But I ran from the Jungvolk at an early age and was raised by an Italian family.”

  “So you understand where I came from? What I did?”

  “I understand the teachings, yes. But it’s not for me to judge what you did or the choices you made. That’s for the Almighty.”

  Becher nodded at this. Then: “What I did was horribly wrong. I know that. And the pain that follows me is even greater. What I want to know, Father—and this is important to me—is will I be forgiven for the things that I have done? Will He forgive me?”

  “If you’re truly repentant of your sins,” said the priest, “no matter how terrible, you can be forgiven. But the road to the Light of Redemption might be a difficult one to travel. But in the end, it’s a road you must ultimately take.”

  “There’s this girl,” Becher went on, “inside the camp. When I killed the man named Dror, she looked at me with such sorrow and disappointment—” He broke off as tears developed in his eyes and a sour lump formed in his throat. Finally: “It broke my heart in ways you could never imagine, Father. Here was this girl I was conditioned to hate to the very core of her bones, only for the opposite to happen. She was beautiful and smart and…” When Becher broke off his eyes appeared in a dreamlike state, far and distant.

  “You loved her,” the priest intuited.

  “I guess I did,” Becher finally said. “I dreamed of being with her always. I even promised to take her way from all this—that I would take her to Paris and buy her a tailored dress to wear.” Then he looked at the priest. “But it was just that,” he told him. “A dream.”